The Wolf Time
by Anzer'ke
Summary: There's a wolf in all of us.
1. Runt: 1

Well the first few thousand words of this have been languishing on my computer for quite some time. I finally broke through the wall and got the rest done. Tell me what you think.

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_The Wolf Time_

Fur felt a lot like hair. Or was it just that they both felt about the same when they were soaked red and sticky? She couldn't focus well enough to say, not if she was going to keep moving with the unfamiliar familiarity of four legs and joints that bent the wrong -right- way. Well, more like three and a half legs with her right wrist -ankle- in the state it was.

The nudity definitely felt weird, as well as horribly uncomfortable in the late winter air. Her layered coatings of fur and blood weren't doing much to keep the wind from chilling her to the bone and with night falling it was only going to get worse. The dim alley she was limping down had turned out to be far from the shelter she'd hoped for, more like her own personal wind tunnel. Her attention occupied by her thoughts, she didn't notice her body tilting to the right until she tipped too far and fell. She tumbled into a trashcan with a choked yelp at the clash of metal against the shaft sticking out of her flank, the latest scabs coming apart in a fresh well of blood.

Judging by the sloppy avalanche of garbage that accompanied her pain, the bin must have been overflowing. The smell was horrendous, worse even then-

Taylor shook herself out of the memory despite the pain and exhaustion and forced her body back to those feet she could stand on.

Some detached part of her mind noted that she was showing symptoms she vaguely remembered as signs of serious blood loss but the thought felt distant and unimportant compared to the need to get away. To hide and run. She had to keep moving. If the heroes caught her...

She had to keep moving.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

They hadn't given her a choice.

The bitches three had made it abundantly clear that they were never going to stop. Keeping her isolated and alone hadn't been enough. Mocking her hadn't been even close to enough. Nor had taking her dearest keepsake of her mom. Even stuffing her in that- that place, putting her in the hospital to nearly die from a dozen major infections had not been enough for them. Instead it had only spurred them on.

He misery had turned to fear after that. After she realised just how willing they were to injure her it had been obvious where it was all heading. Sooner or later they were going to go just a little too far and she was going to die. They were going to kill her and no one would even try to save her.

She could barely sleep and she struggled to eat. At school she hid at every opportunity, skipping classes to huddle in what dark corners they didn't already know about. When they found her in the third floor bathroom it had been her sobbing that gave her away through the stall door.

Crying while they gave her a juice shower had been humiliating but it was the knowledge that her last hiding place was gone that broke her.

She couldn't do it any more. Couldn't keep dragging things out day after day. One way or the other she just wanted it to be over.

So three days later she had smuggled a kitchen knife into school tucked in the waist of her jeans. Walking through the broken metal detector had almost made her smile, the first time Winslow High's apathy had been to her benefit. She hadn't planned to use it of course, but Taylor had no illusions about her chances in a straight fight if her tormentors decided to mob her. A weapon gave her an out if things got too bad.

She hadn't gone anywhere near class, straight to the bathroom to wait for the inevitable. It hadn't been a long wait, the recess bell had barely stopped ringing when the door swung open to admit Emma, Sophia and Madison with assorted faceless extras. The number of witnesses hardly mattered, the faculty would have believed them over her regardless, so she steadied her nerves and clenched her fists just like one of her dad's friends had shown her, back when she still knew how to smile.

Emma had stepped forward by herself, smiling at her and opening her pretty little mouth to say who knew what. It definitely would have been horrible though, so Taylor punched her before she could say it.

Emma's lip burst in a spray of blood and for a few glorious moments she wondered if she might actually be able to win. Then her former friend came right back at her with fury in her eyes and a left hook that had her head ringing. She'd managed to get her arms in the way of the next few blows and was looking for an opening when a bag slammed into her side. Hard.

The distraction was enough for Emma to grab her shirt and throw her into the middle of the room with a tearing sound that Taylor didn't notice because Sophia was right beside her and fucking intimidating. Of course it was one of the faceless extras who took the opening while she ignored them. The lackey kicked her in the back to send her sprawling across the floor.

Growing up in Brockton Bay, Taylor knew what happened to people who got knocked down in fights with gangs. In that moment all she could think about was not dying on a bathroom floor stinking of piss and bleach.

So in a surge of panic she had grabbed for the knife. She fumbled the handle once, twice, then got a grip on it right as Sophia planted a foot so deep in her gut it must have bruised her spine. Her eyes clenched shut and she swept the knife wildly in front of herself as she groped for a sink to pull herself up, trying not to vomit at the hollow ache in her stomach. When she finally got her feet under her and her breath back in her lungs she drew her knife hand back and forced her eyes open.

She hadn't expected all that much. Armed or not, she wasn't exactly intimidating even when she wasn't bruised and wearing a badly torn sweater. Still, it had seemed certain that a knife would make them back off for a while at least. Maybe even scare off some of the followers. Instead she opened her eyes to find a room full of grins. Sophia and Emma smiling widest of all.

They were all well out of her reach and she could see lines of tension on a face or two, but no one was leaving. If anything they were getting closer, Sophia especially was near enough that Taylor thought she might be able to cut her. Cut her again, since one of her panicked slashes had opened up a shallow cut on Sophia's calf. So she was probably getting expelled.

A faint hope rose up in her chest that getting expelled might be enough for them to leave her be. She just had to get out of the bathroom and maybe this would all be over. She could do that, she just had to clear a path and leave.

Gesturing to the door with the knife Taylor said, "G- get out of my way. I'm leaving."

Nobody moved. Ones of the extras near the door giggled nervously.

Stepping forward she kept the knife steady this time and glared as she said, "I don't want to hurt anyone. S- so go away and-"

She barely saw Sophia move. Just a dark blur then she was upside down and slamming into the floor. She managed to hold onto the knife but she could feel a strong grip on her wrist and before she could struggle there was an enormous crack and someone started screaming.

It wasn't until a kick took the air from her lungs yet again that she realised it was her. Her wrist was the grinding centre of an entire world of pain. Her head snapped back with a kick that shattered one lens of her glasses. The kicks kept coming and Taylor realised she was going to die on a bathroom floor after all. She'd brought it on herself when she dared to try and escape them. Obviously the world hated her too much to allow it.

Now she was going to die and they'd tell whatever story they felt like about how the crazy loner girl came at them with a knife and they defended themselves. She'd be the bad guy and they'd be the brave kids getting comforted for their ordeal. They'd never be known as the bitches that they really were-

**DESTINATION**

_AGREEMENT_

_TRAJECTORY_

**AGREEMENT**

She caught the next kick, it hurt so badly that she nearly blacked out, but she caught it. Then she pressed her hands tight to the bare ankle of whoever the fuck it was and made her stop. The change was floating just below the surface of the girl's skin, a form that wouldn't be able to kick her any more. A moment more and the girl was shrinking, twisting in her clothes as she fell to the ground.

By the time Taylor realised it had been Emma's ankle she caught, her one time friend was already finished her transformation into a small reddish terrier-looking thing. One thin leg still grasped in Taylor's hands before she snatched them away like it was on fire.

Tearing her eyes away from the impossible sight, Taylor finally noticed the kicks had stopped and looked around for her attackers, half her vision a blur. Instead of the dense mob she found a wide ring of girls surrounding her, all of them frozen in place with expressions of simple horror fixed on her. All but one – Sophia.

Where the rest of her tormentors stood, Sophia was picking herself up off the floor. Where they trembled, Sophia was absolutely steady. Where they were so obviously terrified Sophia just looked almost mad with anger, fists clenched white at her sides.

It was only when Taylor looked back down to the whimpering dog clumsily scrambling out of a pile of clothes and trying to drag itself away from her that she understood just why they were all staring at her. She had turned Emma Barnes into a dog. She had touched her and picked out a form and reshaped the evil bitch to it.

_'I'm a Cape.'_

There was none of the triumph that she had always thought would accompany that thought. She hurt everywhere, more than she had ever hurt before. She just wanted to leave the bathroom and the school and the bullies and never ever come back. Somehow she didn't think Sophia would be willing to move aside and let her. Unfortunately the power to make people into dogs with a touch wasn't going to let her beat Sophia any more than the knife had.

There was something else though. She wasn't touching anyone now but she could still feel the forms from before. Under her own skin just like they had flowed beneath Emma's. Belatedly she realised that it wasn't just dogs, there was more than just that. Enough that maybe she might be able to beat Sophia after all.

She flexed her uninjured hand and there were claws tipping each of her fingers, Sophia's eyes darted to the change and the other girl took a slow step back. The movement broke the stillness in the room and suddenly everyone but her, Sophia and Emma were fleeing the bathroom as fast as their legs could carry them. Sophia paid them no mind other than to snatch Emma's diminutive new form off the ground and pass her off to Madison as the smaller girl made her escape.

Sophia didn't retreat after them, instead opting to sink into a casual fighting stance. Taylor didn't know much about martial arts but it looked practised, which probably meant that attacking her was exactly what Sophia wanted her to do. So she mirrored Sophia's stillness and turned her focus inward as much as she dared.

Taylor took the chance to pick through the sea of possibilities and decide on the best form to use. After a momentary indecision she focused on strength, adjusting her choice of form for as much of the attribute as possible while holding off on changing physically just yet. Given she had no hope of winning based on skill, brute force seemed the way to go. Though she quickly realised the danger of going as high as her forms seemed able to and dialled it down a bit. Killing Sophia wouldn't make her life any easier.

Where Emma had taken time to shift, her own body flowed like water. The change started and finished between one breath and the next, even as she could pick out each component of it. Limbs thickened and compressed then thickened again, the claws tipping them grew long and sharp. Her height shot up several inches and her shoulders broadened noticeably, her hips slightly less so. Most shocking was the thin fur that sprang up across her body as her face changed in ways she didn't understand but which felt fairly drastic, especially the teeth. Even facing a complete psycho like Sophia she barely held back from turning to look in the mirror.

"Could you get any more pathetic Hebert? Even with powers you don't have the guts to fight me," Sophia broke the silence, a frustrated edge to her voice despite the obviousness of her ploy.

Hoping she wouldn't bite her tongue off with her new teeth, Taylor taunted right back, "I'm just worried I might break you too easily."

Her voice came out different, slightly deeper and a lot stronger than she had spoken in months. It was easy to get out the mocking words where just last week she had struggled to get an insult out under her breath after one of their pranks. Like some kind of barrier had broken and every feeling she had learned to hold back was surging free.

Right at that moment, those feelings were mostly various flavours of anger at the smirk that had spread across Sophia's face following her words.

"Break me huh? You should be more worried about yourself, you've really got no idea what you're doing."

"And you do? Sophia you can talk all you want but you and I both know yo-"

Pushing off the ground with everything she had, Taylor threw herself into a punch with her good hand aimed at Sophia's chest. She'd attacked mid-word hoping to catch her opponent off guard.

Unfortunately there must have been some kind of tell because Sophia slid smoothly out of the way. She didn't even look surprised by it.

Spinning to face Sophia again, Taylor threw another punch to the exact same effect. Then again and again. Each time she charged, Sophia dodged as easily as if she'd known what she was going to do before she did it, the fight amounting to little more than Taylor chasing her smug quarry around the bathroom while she had insult after insult hurled her way.

"Can you even see me with those stupid glasses all smashed up?"

Her punch slammed into a dryer instead of Sophia's teeth, leaving a deep dent in the metal.

"Maybe you're just too stupid to hit me? You need to swing that thing on the end of your arm into me, you dumb cow."

Taylor obliged and her swipe obliterated a stretch of plasterboard. The follow up left shallow claw marks in one of the sinks.

"Wow, I'm not sure if there's even a word for someone as useless as you."

Sophia managed to land a kick to her back as well as dodging that time. It hurt. Overbalancing and demolishing two of the stalls on her way through them hurt worse, badly jarring her wrist. Scrambling out of the mess Taylor closed her good hand around a thin column and held back a smirk of her own.

"Maybe it's 'cause you're using your left hand? Pity I already broke your other fucking wrist, Hebert."

Taylor turned and swung yet again. Except this time she was holding a long metal bar torn from the frame of the stalls. Sophia slid out of the range of her arms and right into the path of the makeshift polearm, a gasp tearing from her lips as she realised her mistake.

What came next stopped Taylor in her tracks.

The bar didn't meet any of the expected resistance from Sophia's ribs. Instead it passed right through the dark mist that Sophia had...turned into.

_'She's a Cape too!'_

They stared at one another for several breaths. The cloud and the monster. Then the clatter of her pole falling to the floor cut through the tension and started the world spinning again.

Still Taylor barely noticed Sophia turning back to normal and hopping back several steps, because now her thoughts were moving again something about Sophia's powers was nagging at her. Lost in her thoughts, it was Sophia that broke their shared silence.

"Heh, well done Hebert you pathetic little shit. I was trying to be nice but now you're really fucked. You should have stayed down on the floor where trash belongs."

The words washed over Taylor to little effect -she'd heard so much worse from her tormentors- but the tone pierced right to her core. Sophia didn't sound worried. Her identity had just been discovered and she sounded like just as much of an arrogant cunt as ever.

_'I don't have to take her shit, not any more.'_

Out loud she found that the shock had not destroyed her new found confidence. The words still came out strong and clear, "Even you cannot be this deluded Sophia. I know your face, I know your powers. How the hell do you think this ends well for you?"

The confident look didn't waver. Sophia's smile only got wider as she reached one hand into a back pocket and pulled out something flat and rectangular, wrapped in black cloth.

She began unwrapping it, one fold at a time, so unhurried that anyone would think she had all the time in the world. Taylor found herself enthralled by the theatrics despite herself, wondering what the hell could be giving the bully the confidence to face her down so brazenly.

Finally it was done. Sophia whisked aside the cloth -unfolded it looked to be a thin balaclava- and revealed a phone, coloured deep blue with gold detail. She turned it on, but Taylor recognised it before the screen lit up with a crest and lots of official text. After all, you saw them on the news every time a cape gave a press conference.

Protectorate Identification, they said that every one was tinker tech...of course Sophia could have just stolen it, gotten around security measures somehow...but...

_'I've seen her power before. The...the new ward...all the news coverage last September...'_

Sophia had tugged on the balaclava while she'd been lost in her own thoughts. The bitch hadn't even taken the opening, just standing across the bathroom from her without a care in the world. The smile was hidden now, but Taylor could feel it still. Like it was burning into her face.

_'No! This can't be right! She can't be-'_

"I'm Shadow Stalker. Proud member of the Brockton Bay Wards, and you just tried to kill me at my school..."

_'She is.'_

Sophia kept talking, Taylor couldn't hear her.

Her world shrunk to a narrow tunnel between her and Sophia. Blood was pounding in her ears but her body felt cold. Numb. All the feeling drained out of her and for a moment she wondered if it would ever come back.

Then she felt the rage.

She reached deep into the flow of shapes inside herself, grabbing for those that she had held back from before. Then she cast them aside. The flow went deeper and she wanted more strength, she wanted the power to smear Sophia across every wall in the building. Diving into the forms Taylor found everything growing hazy around her even as the river of forms became on ocean, stretching to infinity beneath her.

Pressure mounted against her as she pushed down, not simply forcing her back up through the forms but crowding in around her as well. Compressing her thoughts into a smaller and smaller space, muddling what thoughts she could still fit into her mind. All her thoughts were unimportant anyway. Why think when you could feel?

The pain on her jaw was distant, as was the impact of her back with the floor. Taylor opened her eyes and stopped her futile attempts to delve deeper into the forms. What she had was enough. It washed over her as she stood and fixed her gaze on her prey.

It seemed to be shrinking, along with the room they stood in. No matter.

Taylor roared.

Everything after that was a blur of motion and pain.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Limping through the streets some eternal hours -days, weeks, years, centuries?- later, Taylor found herself still living in a world of pain, the motion had slowed a great deal though.

She wormed her way in amongst some old shipping pallets leant against a wall, it wasn't her first hiding place though they all swirled together when she tried to remember specifics. It would do for a while, not for long or they might catch up to her, but for long enough. Enough time to try and sort out the jumble in her skull at least.

Taylor had always had a good memory, so it was a shock to reach for the memories and find them out of her reach. Most of what little was there amounted merely to the vague impressions of some frantic animal.

Those memories of the fight she could grasp were scattered snapshots.

Tearing through walls and floors and finding only frustration as her quarry bit at her back again and again.

Colour and light and shouting as her prey's allies came to its aid, with her mind clouded only by blood loss Taylor could deduce the fuzzy memories as being several of the Bay's heroes coming to her bully's aid.

More pain, until she'd understood it was futile and she'd fled.

Shrinking to make a smaller target had been instinctive, but it had given her back enough awareness to make a plan, and enough of her mind to remember it now. The largest dog -though it was probably much more wolf than dog- that she could find in her forms had given her a tiny lead on the pursuit. Then she'd rounded a corner and shifted to the smallest form she had without slowing down.

An old storm drain that she must have walked past a million times in her life had become an escape route for her tiny form. The bolt in her side had clinked off the bars though, then made contact again with the ground during her awkward landing. Pain had her retching and vomiting as quietly as she could manage, then she had limped away before the heroes thought to look in the drain.

_'That was...it was...'_

Marshalling her knowledge of what happened had not brought any clarity to the time between. Taylor tried to think it through logically, her side had healed over a few times but it still bled sluggishly since she kept jarring the bolt and tearing it back open. How much blood could she have lost? How long would that have taken?

A passing siren yanked her back to her feet, choking back a yelp at the pain from...everything really.

Taylor tried to shuffle out of the pallet she had sheltered amongst. Sirens meant that the heroes were close, or might be close. Either way she had to move but a lance of agony informed her that the bolt had slipped between two of the slats. She shuffled forward to try and get it out, then everything went red for a moment and she came back to herself with a yelp echoing around the alley.

The bolt had caught as she tried to get it free, pulling the shaft out of her body and the head along with it. The coolness of damp asphalt informed her that her legs had given out at the pain.

Taylor wasn't sure if she had the strength to get up again.

_'I...'_

It wasn't comfortable on the ground, but it wasn't much of anything else either. Everything seemed distant.

...The pain...

.

.

.

...The misery...

.

.

.

...The emptiness...

.

.

.

...The damp spot pressing into her back...

_'What...what...is...that?'_

Turning her head was an effort, but not the impossibility that the pallets should have made it. Some of them had been moved.

Dimly she made out another dog, probably an actual dog rather than someone like her, nosing at her side. It was big and lovely, even with the patch of scar where its eye should have been. Two more dogs were behind it. Keeping their distance for some reason.

Her eyes found the chains at each dogs neck, then followed them back to...to...

The last conscious thought Taylor had for some time was that she was almost positive it was a girl.


	2. Runt: 2

Dreams had not been much comfort to Taylor in the last few years. Usually they either started bad or went bad somewhere along the way, even the tingly ones. This one wasn't exactly an exception...just weird...

There was rain, washing out all the colour from the world and flooding her nose with the scent of clean water with a hint of smog. Then the copper attacked, garbed in crimson and pain. It drove back the river and poured down her throat to choke her lungs and squeeze her stomach...

"Hey! Shhhh. Shhhh. You're fine. You're gonna be alright."

The kind voice came with something else to squeeze at her. Quiet hands on her flank and stroking words to drift around her. The tone was clipped, hiding feminity behind a growl, and brought to mind her mom, telling her that she wasn't 'gonna' do anything, she was 'going to' do it. Then the kind hands tried to lift her and the ground hawled her down. Taylor flinched away from the dream as it was consumed by pain...

.

.

.

...the voice again, pointed away from her and with kindness gouged out and impatience sewn into its place, "Come here dammit! It's gonna take two to lift the dog without making shit worse!"

The voice wanted to lift a dog? She could probably help with that. Make her bigger. Stronger. Then she could lift all the dogs she wanted.

"No, I can't fucking do that! There's a fucking arrow sticking out of-!" A tiny tinny yell cut off the voice. Taylor had a brief thought to reach for a shape that would hear better, enough to make out the other side of the conversation, only for it to stop talking while she was considering the idea.

"Good. Look behind warehouse seven on Barrington. Hurry up."

The voice sounded worried towards the end, or maybe angry. Either way it seemed like far too much effort when the ground was so hard and cold and comfy and...

.

.

.

...two giants plucked her from the ground as she writhed and howled her agony. Or tried to howl, they were holding shut her mouth as well. Her body stretched between the two grips and Taylor remembered images of prey strung up and hanging between its hunters. Was this the end? Would they grind her bones and make her into bread?

A low exclamation, like one of the dockworkers when they were hefting a particularly back-breaking bit of cargo, and she was lowered back down onto...onto a surface that wasn't the ground...it was some kind of cloth and it felt wondrous as it cradled her.

"Motherfucker! He is a heavy bastard!" A new voice, all smooth rumbling and...maleness...

"She." The kind voice was quick to respond.

"What?"

"She's a girl." That was a particularly kind thing to say. Not many people still treated her like a girl, or even just like a human being.

"Then-" The voice broke off into a grunt of exertion; "-maybe she should lose a few pounds. I've lifted lighter bags of cement!"

Taylor felt vaguely offended by that remark. She didn't have much going for her, but she wasn't going to be breaking any scales. Maybe she could stand to lose the slight paunch that the last few years had given her...surely that didn't...weigh so...much...

.

.

.

...movement. She was somewhere dark, still cradled by the cloth they had lowered her onto with only air beneath it. The space felt small and stuffy and like it was moving sideways, however the stroking hands were back and there was a low melody being hummed beside her. The girl's voice, softer now, without the gruffness that it had worn before.

Taylor listened and tried to pick out the songs amidst the humming until it lulled her back to sleep...

.

.

.

...the hands were probing at all the places she hurt, though the pain was muted now, sometimes dabbing at the wounds instead. It felt a little like picking at a scab. There was pain but a kind of curiosity along with it. Which reminded her, looking around might be a good idea.

Her eyes felt crusty with sleep. Which was not only disgusting, it also meant that it took her a few tries to get them open. Eventually the lids agreed to part and she got a clear look at her rescuer.

The girl was bent over her and seemed intent on the bolt sticking out of her side. Auburn hair hung in a shaggy mop that hid her eyes, Taylor imagined that they were like her mom's eyes. Gentle and...and...

She wasn't sure why the girl made her think of her mom. She was built thickly where her mom had been slender, had short auburn tangles instead of endless waves of black, she was dressed more like a dockworker on their day off than a university professor...yet despite it all Taylor found herself surprised when the girl raised her head and revealed blue eyes instead of grey. Loss slammed into her gut on top of everything else and she wished, wished so much that it was her mom.

The girl reached out to her but Taylor was already retreating back into slumber...anything was better than what her life had become...

.

.

.

...something was different...there was a new hollow inside her...in her side...

This time Taylor opened her eyes immediately, looking to her flank as best she could and finding that, yes, the bolt was out and she had been wrapped in bandages. Bandages that were pretty thoroughly soaked in blood but bandages nonetheless. The gratitude welling up inside her was surprisingly pleasant, a contrast with everything else.

_clink_

She could feel the movement behind her along with the noise. Metal on metal, like someone dropping cutlery into a sink.

"You were right, this is definitely one of Stalker's. Can't say I'm not sympathetic."

"I told you."

"Yeah, yeah...wait a... Hey Rachel, this light patch here, was that there a minute ago?"

"No. That was all black."

"So chalk up one more weird thing? She'd better get here soon, this is starting to feel like a set-up."

Taylor wanted to object to that, though she wasn't sure what they were talking about, however the dark was coming back for her. Maybe it was friendly...

.

.

.

...a new voice, another girl, this one reminded her of Emma. Of who Emma used to be.

"-and you haven't used your power on her? I thought it had a healing effect for recent injuries?"

"Too risky, she's not normal." The kind voice had gone from gruff to outright annoyed while she was sleeping.

"Well you were right not to, and definitely right to call me. I'm pretty sure I know what's going on here."

The new voice was getting closer with every word, footsteps accompanying it. The beat of shoe on a hard floor continued in the absence of conversation, circling her until they stopped right in front of her face. Then nothing but a silence that seemed horribly expectant all of a sudden...

Drifting off again was denied to her by the kind hands stroking along her spine, the feeling woke her up even as it relaxed her, reminding Taylor that she was being looked after. They'd gotten her off the streets and seemed to be trying to patch her up.

Opening her eyes gave Taylor a clear view of a slim blonde in a particularly nice combination of cream sweater and lavender leggings. The obvious good taste didn't diminish her impression of this girl as someone like Emma, but the look in her eyes definitely placed that impression as the Emma of long ago. The person her old friend had become couldn't possibly have eyes that soft and open, even if she'd been willing to suffer the freckles around them without resorting to surgery or some such nonsense.

_'That vain bitch, hopefully she's still a little doggy, I'm sure as hell not turning her back any time soon...'_

"Hey there," The blonde dragged her attention back to the world; "You're probably not feeling it with those pain meds in you, but you're still bleeding. In fact if you didn't have a little regeneration going on then I'm pretty sure the bleeding would have killed you long before Rachel found you."

"Lisa, what are you doing? We need you to figure out where she came from and how we can help her, so why are you talking to the dog?" Cut in the guy's voice. Before Taylor could decide which part of his words to focus on, and thus whether or not to be annoyed at him, the blonde answered him.

"Because she's not a dog, are you Taylor."

"The fuck are you talking about? Of course she's a dog!" The kind voice sounded genuinely angry at the claim that she was anything else.

_'Maybe I should just stay as a dog forever. That would fix things, wouldn't it?'_

"I'm kind of surprised neither of you figured it out by now. I mean I get Rachel not reading yesterday's paper, but you too Brian? Shocking."

Not-quite-Emma's hands were smaller than those of the other voices, lifting her head to meet her gaze square on.

"Now Taylor, I think I've figured out enough of what's going on and you need to listen to me. You're stuck right now. You keep shifting form a tiny bit at a time but you need to go for a bigger change. I think that you can heal yourself if you try, then you'll be able to turn back safely. Okay?"

_'...that's it? That's all I had to do? Why didn't I think of that sooner?'_

"What do you mean, turn back?" Said the male voice, but no one seemed inclined to reply, or maybe she just didn't hear them as she let herself slip away. Not into the dark of sleep this time, but rather into the sea beneath her skin. Taylor slipped into the flow of forms within herself and was promptly lost in a storm.

The forms swirled around her in an ever shifting mess. Tossing around her body, or her mind or whatever. It made a lot of sense that her actual shape was unstable when the forms were this much of a mess.

_'Did I do this?'_

Given the lack of other culprits it seemed likely. The realisation brought a fresh wave of self-loathing, she'd destroyed something beautiful without even noticing, then a second epiphany followed on its heels and flipped things upside down.

_'If I did it...then that means I can undo it!'_

Taylor grabbed at a form, bracing herself to be swept alongside it and finding that it slammed to a halt instead. Distantly she could feel a few other forms slowing or stopping along with it, ones connected to this one. Taking hold of another brought it similarly to a stop, then another, and another, and another.

She had no idea how long it took, or if it took any time at all, but finally the forms were back in order. Presumably that meant she wasn't shifting randomly any more, rather than checking Taylor threw herself at the next item on the list. Healing her wounds sounded like an incredibly good idea.

It took no time at all to realise that it wasn't happening. The blonde had been wrong, which was really obvious now she thought about it. She'd changed forms plenty of times since getting hurt and there'd been no miraculous healing of her wounds. Still, something about the idea seemed...

Following the ghost of a feeling brought Taylor to a particular area in the flow, forms with varying degrees of one particular ability. An ability that seemed just about perfect for the situation at hand.

Taylor found a form in that area that had four legs and was close to her current dog breed, then she took a ragged breath in reality and shifted forms.

A moment and her wounds were itching fiercely. Two moments and the pain managed the curious feat of ceasing to be muted even as it faded away, like a song being turned back on in the last few notes. Then she felt the itch turn into a crawling sensation within her torn and abused flesh, quickly spreading into the broken bones of her wrist -ankle- and crackling there.

It couldn't have been much more than half a minute before the sensations of regeneration sputtered out, leaving her feeling awake and alert and wonderfully, luxuriously, euphorically pain free.

Free to look around properly for the first time, Taylor took in the room around the steel folding table she was lying on. It looked like an old warehouse, the ground floor filled with dusty machinery but for the area near the front where she found herself, and a rickety looking set of stairs leading up to a second floor that she couldn't see. It was quiet, just the gentle tinkling of rain on a metal roof and the occasional distant engine. The abandoned air was broken by the three people she shared the room with, two girls that she'd already seen and a guy in leather that she had to drag her eyes away from, all of them looking about her age.

They'd scattered human touches around the place; coats piled on the railing of the stairs, a backpack dumped on the floor beside her table with three vaguely familiar dogs lying around it, some shopping bags left near a rolling door that looked like it hadn't opened in years. The three of them were comfortable where they stood, like this was their space.

Even just thinking of standing seemed a little strange after however long it was that she'd been a quadruped...

She didn't hesitate, without the pain clouding her mind it was a moment's thought to return to her regular body. Then, as plain old Taylor, she stretched every limb as far as it would go and closed her eyes to bask in the return to a normal body. Even if it was a fair bit breezier without the fur.

_'...oh.' _

All of them looked shocked in the glimpse she got before slamming her eyes shut, and she understood why they were staring at the dog that turned into a girl. Still, Taylor wished that they would stare a little less while she curled into a ball and wished that she had the power to not be in a world where she was flashing her rescuers.

This time she was barely aware of the flash of instinct before she followed it, the form leaving her unchanged but for a sensation at the small of her back that she definitely didn't associate with having hands.

Her tail thickened and extended as she curled it around to her front. Quickly becoming a bush of silky black fur that was almost as long as she was tall and probably wider than she was. Enough to cover her if she faced towards them, which left in her no choice but to look straight at them and hope they didn't react to her humiliation like just about everyone else her age that she kne-

Her world went dark and warm and suddenly smelled like wet dog, which wasn't so bad given what she smelled like herself. After a bit of confused scrambling at the fabric that had been thrown over her Taylor realised that it was a coat, large enough to cover her easily, though she kept her tail in front of herself even as she settled the coat around her shoulders. Finding herself still curled up, but at least sitting upright and covered.

Now she got a look at the three of them. The blonde was standing by the guy and both of them were staring carefully at the floor, the other girl was looming just a few feet from her and looked incredibly lost.

"You uh, you looked embarrassed? I guess?" She sounded unsure for some reason, the attitude definitely didn't match up with the rest of her. Then it passed and she looked tough and distant as she snatched up the backpack and turned away. Taylor couldn't help but stare as she crossed the to the wall with the dogs trailing after her and sat with them piled around her.

"So hey. That's a nice tail you've got there."

The blonde's hesitant voice called Taylor's attention over to her, though she was wincing when Taylor 's eyes found her.

"Okay. That didn't really come out right." This time she sounded much more cheery. Stepping lightly over to the table she hopped up onto it and sat with her legs dangling over the side, looking considerably more relaxed at their proximity than Taylor felt.

"I'm Lisa, the guy in the motorbike leathers is Brian and the girl who found you is Rachel."

Rachel didn't react to her name, too busy fussing over her dogs, but Brian looked stricken for a moment. Then he swept a hand through his cornrows and walked over to offer her a hand.

Taylor managed to get a hand free without exposing herself and shook his, "I-I'm Taylor. I mean I guess you knew that..."

"Not at all," He rescued her from the silence with a boyish grin; "it was Lisa who figured out who you were, and I'd be glad of the introduction either way. It's nice to meet you."

She felt horribly under-dressed to be this close to a guy who looked like Brian did -all muscle and heroic chin, skin colour aside he looked like she imagined Legend might look beneath his mask- let alone to be touching his hand.

_'Wait, when was the last time I touched a guy who wasn't my dad?...I'm such a loser...'_

It wasn't until he cleared his throat that she realised she had been holding his hand for a bit, or maybe a lot, longer than was polite. When she let him go he was kind enough not to comment on it, just coughing awkwardly and saying, "Well I should be getting going. Busy day, I just stopped by to help and you seem fine and you're in good hands and don't worry about owing us or anything, just rest up and uh..."

He trailed off as he went for his coat and shrugged it on as he went over to a small door recessed into the brickwork. She'd missed it on her first look around the place but with how easily it opened she guessed it was the entrance they actually used. He stepped out into the afternoon rain with a final wave and then the door shut out the city once more.

Lisa laughed loudly beside her, the apprehension had barely begun to form when she clapped a hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. Getting herself under control, the blonde gestured to the door and elaborated, "It's hilarious when he tries to act cool, like he wasn't freaking out at you being half naked. I'll bet the rain was turning to steam on contact with his face!"

She bent over with the return of her laughter and Taylor found the apprehension falling away. It seemed the dog girl wasn't the only nice one here.

"Glad to see you've relaxed at last. I was a little concerned for our safety if you got mad at my jokes."

"I-I wouldn't do that!" Taylor hurried to reassure her.

A delicately raised eyebrow was the give away that it might just have been another joke.

"You probably want a few explanations right? Well I'm happy to give them to you, explanations are kind of my thing."

It was Taylor's turn to raise a brow.

"No really, see explanations are my superpower." She extended a hand into what little space there was between the two of them; "I go by Tattletale in costume, I'm a supervillain."

In any other circumstances those words would have had Taylor flipping the table and trying to choose between running and fighting. The sheer weirdness stopped her short of panicking though, sitting beside a perky girl on a bloody table in what Taylor suddenly suspected might be a secret lair was...it was too far out of her experience, she had no idea how to react so she just shook Lisa's hand and wondered if she might still be dreaming.

"You're not dreaming."

_'She can read minds!'_

"I can't read minds, just make really good guesses. Incredibly good guesses in fact. I'm kind of a big deal."

This time Taylor was the one who laughed, a little snort of snotty mirth at the self-depreciating joke. So it was a world where supervillains could be nicer than Wards, that was the first bit of good news she'd had in a fair while.

"What about?" She gestured over to Rachel, who was still absorbed in her dogs, perhaps suspiciously so.

"Yes, her too. Brian and another guy make up the rest of our team. We're the Undersiders. Oh and what Brian said was true. Don't start worrying about owing us for the save, you got that?"

It could have sounded like a veiled reminder, but coming from Lisa it was pretty clear that she meant no such thing. Not with how she breezed over it.

"More importantly, we need to get you some proper clothes. Not that Rachel's coat isn't almost as nice as your tail."

"Um...Not that I don't appreciate the offer, but I'd rather just go home and get some of my own clothes."

The tension rippled across Lisa's face before she could mask it, then she must have realised that she'd been spotted because she gave up on trying to hide it. Worry didn't fit her nearly as well as the smiles and the laughter had.

"About that, Taylor we need to talk and it's, it's not going to be a lot of fun."

_'That's...more than a little ominous.'_

"I'm not sure how much you know so I'm just going to start from the beginning. Alright?"

"Y-yeah, that's fine."

Lisa took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, then she started talking and didn't stop until it was done.

"What I know is more limited than I'd like, some stuff had me distracted so I didn't really follow the news coverage too closely yesterday. It wasn't until this morning that I looked into what happened.

Two days ago you were all over the news as the girl who went on a violent rampage at Winslow High, I guessed that you might have just gotten your powers and I'm sure of it now...They reported you by name and with pictures, I'm afraid that you don't have much of a secret identity.

The highlight that most stations ran with was one of the Wards, Shadow Stalker, secretly going to Winslow and holding you off to save a bunch of students, which struck me as PR bullshit and going by your face that was pretty spot on too. Then there was a chase where you made the white hats, the heroes, look like idiots and they've been looking for you since then.

Going by what I've picked up, you were wandering around from then until when Rachel found you a couple hours ago. I think that you'd gotten stuck with just enough regeneration to stay alive but not enough to heal properly. That's about all I've got so far. Do you understand?"

Lisa looked at her but she was too stunned to even nod. After almost a minute of her staying silent Lisa spoke up again, "You see Taylor, the reason that you probably shouldn't go get your own clothes is that you're a wanted criminal. They'll definitely have people on your house looking for exactly that kind of thing. It's, it's okay though, you can just stay here and you'll be totally safe. Guaranteed."

Rachel broke her from her stupor with a grunt of...agreement? Amusement? Dismissal? Taylor couldn't tell and she didn't really give a damn.

"My whole life." Taylor choked out; "That's what you're talking about, my whole life is gone isn't it. I can't- I can't get it back."

"Well, you could let them arrest you?" Taylor felt like her snort was an appropriate response to that idea; "I know, but it is an option. You didn't kill anyone, just a few minor injuries here and there and a hell or a lot of property damage, so you might be able to get a deal for a lessened punishment. That's probably the best you can hope for though, the media's already judged you guilty and the white hats aren't sympathetic with anyone who attacks them or theirs-"

"Attack them! Like it was my fault!" Taylor found herself standing on the floor and only just keeping her voice below a scream. Lisa was at her side almost immediately.

"We know it wasn't your fault, it's everyone else who has already made up their minds. I really am sorry about this Taylor."

"Because Sophia told them some bullshit story! They didn't make up their minds, they just bought whatever she told them! Of course no one would think that maybe there was another side to it!"

"Who's Sophia? Oh fuck, fuck I really shouldn't know that."

The sick fury coiled in her gut condensed into a plan at Lisa's words.

"Who is Sophia? Don't worry, I'm going to tell the whole world who she is just as soon as I can."

"That's a very bad idea Taylor." Now Lisa sounded worried, almost scared; "Even if you're already outed, there's some serious consequences for revealing a hero's secret identity."

"Like what!? What the fuck else can they do to me!?"

"Plenty." Rachel's voice cut through the anger she was wrapping around herself, leaving her staring dumbly at the auburn haired girl where she sat against the wall among her dogs; "Telling people her name is a stupid plan. Don't do it."

_'Right. It was a bad plan, of course it was. I just need to...I just...'_

"What do I...?" She whispered. Unsure what she was asking, or who she was directing the question at.

"It's going to be fine, you're going to get through this Taylor." Lisa soothed; "You just need to avoid your house for a while, until things cool down."

"You can stay here." Was Rachel's addition, the hesitation from before returning to her voice. The same kind voice that had found her and saved her. Lisa put an arm around her shoulders and the combination almost made her burst into tears.

Her anger was drifting away, leaving her with only the misery and the loss. Taylor couldn't face that.

"No!" She threw off Lisa's arm; "I'm not just going to lay down and let them do whatever they want to me!" She removed Rachel's coat with more care than she had Lisa's arm; "And I'm not letting them take away my home!"

She was at the door before either of them could stop her, then she threw it open and stared out into the rain.

A moment later a black dog the size of a small pony was sprinting through the streets.


	3. Runt: 3

The rain was picking up as she left the warehouse. By the time she made it to the end of the street and realised she had no idea where she was, it had become a downpour. The sensation was closer to standing under a waterfall than a shower, obscuring vision beyond a few buildings away and soaking into her fur. Dampening the fire that had driven her outside in the first place.

Given the seasonal cold, Taylor was glad that her current 'coat' proved better at keeping the water from her skin than the ratty old thing she'd normally have worn for such weather.

_'And Emma was so proud of that jacket with the fur lining. This is way better.'_

An image of herself as a fur coat and boots popped into Taylor's head and killed the trace of good humour.

_'Not the time anyway. I need- I need to get home.'_

Which brought her back around to the central problem of not knowing where she was. It was definitely somewhere in the Docks but the rain made it impossible to pick out any landmarks and one stretch of rundown warehouses tended to look much like another.

Going back to ask for directions ran the risk of them convincing her not to go at all, a risk she couldn't take, so she'd just have to figure it out herself. Not that that was so hard. If she just walked with the bay on her left, she would have to reach one of the main streets sooner or later. Of course that required knowledge of which way it was to the sea...

Her power had yielded solutions before, so she delved back into it. This time she had a good idea what she was looking for from the start, though as her body shrunk from form to form and her eyes grew larger and more complex, she found that it was a lot less effective than she had expected. Enhanced eyesight was definitely among her tools, but even as a foot high anklebiter of a dog with eyes like saucers she still couldn't see through the rain. X-ray vision seemed to be a no.

It called something else to the surface though, a form that floated up to her at the idea of seeing through walls. Enhanced hearing this time. The rain grew in her ears, from white noise into a chorus of thunder, her cue to try something else before she had to waste time healing burst eardrums.

Scent seemed an obviously bad choice in the rain, but then her shuffle from form to form gave her a nose that flowered into pinkish red tendrils and the world opened up before her. Smell was definitely the way to go.

The water didn't smell as simple and clean any more. Purity gave way to a bouquet of chemicals and smoke and more than a few things that she had no name for, the street sung to her about everything that had been on it in the last hour, the information poured in -more than she could hope to comprehend- until she thought she must explode with the pressure of it all. However nestled in among the chaos was exactly what she was looking for, the scent of salt.

It wasn't just a clue to the way home. It was a thousand memories of her dad, coming home stinking of the sea and passing it along with every hug. It was the jolt of realising that she had barely spared her father a thought in weeks. She'd been so caught up in her own misery that she hadn't thought what her actions might mean for him. So consumed by her isolation that she forgot the one person who was still there for her.

_'I have to get home.'_

She dived into the rain with renewed vigour. Dashing as fast as her legs would carry her, Taylor found the rain made for a lucky break. Not only did the low visibility let her use a larger, faster, form, but the weather also seemed to be keeping people off the streets. Other than the occasional set of headlights flashing by, she might have been alone in the city.

Despite having to stop and get her bearings back more than once, Taylor found herself clear of the Docks sooner than she'd expected. A symphony of engines, tires and the occasional horn guided her the last few blocks to Bayview Boulevard. Even better, she recognised this particular bit of it from the scattered times that she'd gone to work with her dad, it was part of his regular route. With her destination finally clear, she set off once more.

Taylor was smart enough to realise that she would have to be more careful with the next stretch, visibility was low but not that low. A smaller form meant that people would at least think stray instead of parahuman fugitive, she told herself that the reduction in speed was a small price to pay.

At first she ran as close to the road as she could, but after having to take a detour to dodge umbrella wielding pedestrians for the third time in as many minutes, she switched to staying further away and roughly parallel to it. Keeping track of how far she'd gone was harder that way, but there wasn't much choice.

A mile and a half of wrong turns and backtracking finally saw her to the familiar turn that lead her dad to and from their little patch of decaying suburbia every day. Even through the rain it seemed to be calling out to guide her home. She quickened her pace in anticipation.

That was revealed to be a mistake a few moments later when she rounded a corner and found a hulking shape quietly rolling past her. Taylor had seen PRT transports before, she'd been overjoyed to get a ride on an older model -one of the older models with the engines that had roared deafeningly- back in middle school, but that had been when she was just another kid looking up to the heroes. Now that she was on the run the sight had her diving for cover in a scraggly hedgerow.

Nose to the dirt she curled as small as she could and waited for it to pass, expecting it to stop any second. Then after it passed she held the position for a while longer in case it came back around.

Only once she was certain that it hadn't spotted her did Taylor slink out of the bushes. It occurred to her then that it probably wasn't a coincidence that a PRT transport had been driving through her neighbourhood and that running straight home had been a monumentally stupid idea. That would be exactly what they'd expect, of course they'd have put people in position to catch her when she came home.

For a moment she wondered if it might be a mistake to go home at all, but only for a moment.

_'They can't be watching everywhere, I just have to be more careful not to get spotted. It'll be fine.'_

Abandoning the roads, Taylor found a form with a less conspicuous fur colour than pitch black and began her long trek. Sloshing through gardens and under fences, she kept low and moved only when she was certain no one could see her, and slowly even then. Mud soon caked deep into her fur, transforming her soft second skin into a squelching tangle. After realising how well it camouflaged her she forced herself to roll around a few times, completing the coating.

_'It'll come off easily enough, this isn't the time to get squeamish dammit.'_

Paranoia proved itself when peaking through the slats of Mrs Fenterson's fence -just two streets away from home- gave her a clear view of a PRT officer in full gear, the rain sluicing off them. Their combined chainmail mesh and combat armour was reminiscent of the transport, something that she used to think was cool and now wanted to be as far away from as possible. He, or possibly she, was walking along the fence line with deliberate slowness. Swivelling their head with every step and keeping a firm grip on their weapon, some bulky thing that Taylor didn't recognise.

Taylor let them pass, then cocked her head at an approaching sound and waited for the officer trailing behind to pass as well, before darting across to the next garden.

The rain was starting to ease off, driving her to take even more care about staying hidden. The next two gardens she traversed mostly within their hedges, using a small form to avoid getting tangled up as much as possible. The weather quickly fell in intensity such that by the time she reached the Hensens' old house -sitting on the market for three years and two plots from her home for a lot longer- the waterfall was reduced to a mere drizzle. The occasional shaft of sunlight poked through the clouds to make it even harder to stay hidden.

Poking her head out of the Hensens' overgrown garden, she stared across the street at the house that backed onto her own. Home to old Mr and Mrs Smith, a pair of pensioners that kept to themselves outside of occasional forays into scaring the pants off of any kids that dared to step on their property. Long ago she and Emma had lost a ball to the elderly couple's back garden and almost wet themselves in terror trying to get it back, when Emma's big sister had casually hopped the fence and retrieved it they had seriously discussed the possibility that Anne was secretly Alexandria.

The childhood terror seemed especially dumb when contrasted with the police cruiser pulled up in front of the Smith's front yard and the cops inside, gulping coffee while they kept watch. As if to rub it in Mrs Smith chose that moment to peer out the window at their car, looking less like a looming terror and more like a small scared old woman.

The street was devoid of cover, the rain had abated almost entirely. Taylor found herself with no idea how she would make it across without being seen.

_'I'm so close. There's no way I'm giving up now.'_

A distraction might work, but it was a hell of a risk. Waiting for their shift to end might take all night and wasn't certain to give her an opening. Circling around would probably just get her caught trying to find a hole in their watch that wouldn't be there.

She squished a paw violently into the dirt to vent her frustration. Then looked around carefully for any sign that she had been heard. When a tide of heroes failed to materialise Taylor dropped her head into the mud and suppressed the urge to grumble. It looked like she was going to be stuck waiting for something to happen.

That wait ended up talking about half an hour, or at least that was her best estimate, during which time the afternoon finished its transition to evening and the rain continued in fits, stutters and occasional torrential bursts. All the while the temperature was plummeting, even for January.

It was the distant sound of an engine that had her perk up from where she was idly considering the best form to reduce Sophia to if she ever got the jump on the sadistic cow, not the first engine she'd heard during her wait but definitely the first one that sounded like it was coming closer.

The sound gave her an idea. Which she promptly discarded as stupid and dangerous and generally a bad plan. Her second idea was much simpler and the better for it.

Slinking as close to the road as she could get, Taylor waited impatiently while the car rounded the corner at the end of the street and slowly drew closer to her. When it finally came level with her she darted out as close behind it as she could. With the car concealing her from the cops for a few brief moments she could cross the road with impunity, completing the manoeuvre by rushing into another bush on the other side.

Then she shrunk to the smallest form she had and crouched as still as she could, eyes spinning in search of anyone who had spotted her.

...No alarm sounded, the cops stayed right where they were.

After waiting a little longer, just in case, she began the journey around the side of the Smiths' house and into their garden. To be fair to them, she could see why they'd been so determined to keep children away from the manicured organisation of it all. Even after pouring rain and in the middle of winter, it still managed to look lovely.

She paused long enough to dig up one of their flowerbeds, then she was wriggling through a hedge to press against the fence that bordered her home. Now that she was so close, the frantic urge to get home had trickled out of her, the space filled by worry at what she might find. Two days felt like a very long time to have been gone given the circumstances.

Still, it had been too long a journey to sneak home for her to waste it all with some stupid blind rush through the front door. Taylor kept to the same pace, slowly digging at a weak spot in the fence and keeping at it until she could get underneath without shaking the slats. She peaked out from the hedge on their side of the fence, not moving even when she didn't see anyone.

Only after waiting long enough to be absolutely sure no one was going to come through the yard, did she dash out of hiding. Scurrying from one scraggly bush to another until she cleared their meagre yard and was huddled in an overgrown shrub beneath the kitchen window. The open kitchen window.

"You can spin it all you like, I'm not agreeing to have you people in my house." That was her dad's voice! He couldn't have been more than a few feet away.

An officious, and nasal, sounding voice replied, "Mr Hebert, as I have said several times we have a warrant to search your home and-"

"And it runs out in a few hours. Which is when you're going to get the hell out!"

"If we're outside then we cannot guarantee your safety. You might get hurt before we can respond." The words might have veiled a threat, but the warmth of this new voice held only honest concern.

"My safety?" Her dad sounded exhausted all of a sudden. The fire and fury drained out of his voice. "If you think I give a damn about that right now then you're obviously not a parent Mr Triumph."

_'He...he didn't deny it...he really thinks that I'd hurt him...'_

"Well it's not just your safety at stake," The voice of bureaucracy returned; "For the sake of the people who do care about their own safety, we're going to be keeping this place under watch indefinitely and I'm afraid you don't have a say in that."

"Mr Hebert." Triumph again; "It's not just your daughter that might come for you. We'll also be on the watch for reprisal against you as the family of a villain, it's not an uncommon thing when someone is unmasked."

"You make it sound like you're going to be here forever."

Silence answered him loud and clear.

"But, I mean you can't..."

"We can and we will, as I have already said it is as much for your protection as to aid our pursuit of your daughter."

"It won't be as heavy as right now, you won't have me and Battery camping in your yard." The joke didn't get a laugh; "Uh, yeah, it'll just be a few PRT agents keeping an eye out is all."

She'd heard enough. It wasn't like she could do anything with Triumph right beside her dad anyway. Best to get moving before someone found her or the urge to give her dad a hug overwhelmed her better judgement. As she crept away the argument didn't seem to be dying down much.

_'I'm so sorry daddy. So so sorry.'_

Since the door at the front of the house was probably covered and the kitchen door was obviously out, Taylor went around to the basement window and shoved against it...in just...the right-

_clunk_

The window popped open so suddenly that she nearly fell through, just managing to scramble back in time. Poking her head through let her pick out the clear patch of floor amidst all the mess of tools and boxes and assorted junk.

Of course her jump missed that clear patch completely and she bounced off a box of books then thumped head first into the concrete. It didn't make much noise but the pain still made for a great reminder why she'd stopped sneaking in and out of the house that way long before she got too big to fit through the window. Fortunately her powers let her shake off the injury as quickly as she could find a form that had sufficient regeneration, which was pretty fast.

While she was at it she took the time to scrape off as much of her coating of muck as she could. It wouldn't hide her indoors and besides that, tracking mud all over the house would just be the cherry on the bad daughter cake. Once she'd gotten as much of it off as she could manage, Taylor began picking through forms for one well suited for sneaking from the basement up to her room. Wide paws, as light as possible, good hearing.

Five minutes later she was trying to decide between brown fur or cream when footsteps drifted down from the yard through the open basement window and announced that there was no more time for hesitating. The stairs were old and creaky but the tenth, fifth and second were all solid enough to take her current weight silently as she leapt from one to the next.

Pressing an ear to the door soon informed her that the argument was still ongoing and still located in the kitchen, which gave her a clear shot across the living room to the stairs. She took a more human form just long enough to gently twist the doorknob, then she nudged it open just enough to slip through.

It wasn't until she had done so, closed it just as carefully and scampered as quietly as possible to shelter beneath the couch that it occurred to Taylor that another person might have been in the room and staying silent.

Before she could properly berate herself for the mistake, rapid footsteps heralded a less hypothetical risk of discovery. The sound was already too close to run for the stairs, all she could do was huddle all the way back against the wall and hope no one found a reason to look under the couch.

The first set of shoes to come into sight were her dad's familiar work boots. Formal enough for the office, rugged enough for the docks. As he picked something up from the coffee table -or maybe put something down on it- another set of shoes stepped up next to him, these ones much more formal and about as rugged as wet tissue paper.

_'The bureaucrat. Or maybe he's a lawyer, he certainly sounds like Mr Barnes.'_

"I've already read this, I'm not sure what you think shoving it at me again is going to accomplish."

"I'm asking you to read it again. Read it and tell me to my face that there's no evidence my daughter is the victim."

"Your daughter's diary is not evidence, its a list of allegations. All of them asserted with no proof but her word, and that given in absence since all we have of her at present is the diary in question."

_'That's, my journal? How did Dad get my journal?!'_

He'd been in her room. He'd searched her room and found the journal nestled at the back of her closet. It was ridiculous to even care, he had every reason to do it, but she was still angry. Her last sanctuary had been violated by the one person she should have been able to trust. Rage bubbled impotently in her chest while their conversation grew steadily more heated.

"I understand that the journal's not enough by itself but how can you not think it warrants a closer look?"

"You have a reputation as an intelligent man, I'm sure you understand that we do not have infinite resources with which to investigate claims as thin as this. Especially not when there's absolutely no doubt that your daughter did bring a weapon to school with the intent to use it, that she did assault other students with a parahuman power and that she would have done worse if it wasn't for Shadow Stalker's actions."

"...You're right, I'm not an idiot. It's not hard to join the dots here. Even I can figure out that your Ward must be one of the girls mentioned in this journal-"

"I would step very carefully Mr Hebert." There was a note of steel beneath the nasal drone; "The Bryer Act lays out some very harsh penalties for revealing the secret identities of heroes, especially when they're underage. No matter how angry you may be it does not give you the right to expose the family of a Ward to danger."

"That's convenient." Her dad bitterly replied.

Boots covered in ornate greaves came into sight from the direction of the kitchen, marking Triumph's return to the conversation.

"Sir, I can see how this might sound like we're covering for Shadow Stalker and I want you to know that's not what's going on here. We just don't want her family to be placed at risk or her life upended. I can assure you that we don't need to cover anything up, because there's no way she did what your daughter claims."

"I've seen her interview with-"

"Everyone's seen that interview...I won't deny that she can be abrasive. She's also dedicated and enthusiastic about her work, maybe too enthusiastic, but this is my colleague we're talking about and she's a Ward, not some sadistic bully."

"There's simply no evidence to the contrary outside of this journal," The lawyer added; "The students she attacked deny it of course, but teachers and other students support their version of events. Your daughter didn't get along with Ms Barnes and her friends, she made a lot of accusations against them that turned up nothing when the school pursued them. Then for no reason that anyone -including yourself- is aware of, she assaulted them and might have killed someone if Shadow Stalker hadn't been there to save them."

"Are you trying to say my daughter just made it all up? That she sent herself those messages? That she put herself in the hospital?!"

Triumph cut right through his mounting roar. "No, its clear that someone in Winslow was giving your daughter a lot of trouble and the school has promised to investigate that. We're saying that while she may have made certain assumptions about who was behind what was done to her, that doesn't make those assumptions true. It certainly doesn't justify attacking students who had nothing to do with it."

"I can see how this is difficult for you Mr Hebert, but surely you can see that all the evidence points to your daughter being unstable and in dire need of help. Help that she will get once she's safely in custody."

Her dad's boots abruptly stomped off towards the kitchen.

In his absence Triumph spoke up, "So Velocity and Battery are on the Barnes girl's house, but this is the second most likely location? What about the other girls' homes? With how Stalker described her I'd think she'd be more likely to go after them."

Taylor feared that Triumph and the lawyer would keep talking, but the sound of the back door cut off the lawyer's reply and had them following her dad into the kitchen. She grabbed the opportunity and wriggled out from under the couch, scurrying for the stairs while they called for him to come back inside.

Only when she was safely upstairs did she slow down, sink into the worn carpet and allow herself to think about what she'd overheard. The resolve that she'd had when she rushed out into the rain had deserted her. Stop them from taking away her home? It was already lost and there was not a damn thing she could do about it. It was a massive risk coming back at all

All the effort she'd put in to getting home, and for what? What the hell was she even doing here? She couldn't even explain to her dad without getting knocked around by another hero.

_'I should have just stayed with the Undersiders.'_

She doubted that their offer would still stand after she threw it back in their faces like that.

_'So I don't have anywhere to go, guess I'm homeless now...which means I'll need my stuff.'_

Standing on all four paws, she took a deep breath and then shook her head clear, spattering some lingering mud on the walls and floor in the process. The misery still dragged at her body, calling for her to lie down and wait for them to find her, but she refused it. Sitting and waiting to be arrested would mean every hellish moment of her escape had been for nothing. It would mean that she hadn't just lost everything, it would mean that Sophia and Emma and Madison and all their shitty friends had won.

They were not going to win.

Her bedroom door was right there, but she ignored it for now. Instead, picking her way carefully to avoid the creaky floorboards that were scattered about like landmines, she went to the bathroom and shifted back to her normal self, regular old Taylor Hebert. The blurry sight of herself in the mirror, scrawny, naked and covered in drying mud, made for a momentary distraction before she grabbed her spare glasses from under the sink and wrapped both of the enormous fluffy towels that she'd gotten last Christmas around herself. Her hair was a mess and it felt incredibly gross, but the pipes would inform everyone downstairs if she ran any water and she couldn't afford to be discovered yet.

Poking her head out to make sure the coast was clear, Taylor made a beeline for her bedroom door this time. Swinging it open, she stepped through and closed the door in a single motion, letting her head thud softly against it. With another deep breath she turned around and took in the state of her room. It wasn't a pleasant sight.

Really it should have been obvious that the PRT would search her room. She was a dangerous villain after all, they'd want to know if she had any plans to attack someone or blow something up or, or something...

It just hadn't occurred to her until she saw her drawers pulled out -clothes unfolded and clumsily shoved back into them- and her closet hanging open, her books stacked in front of her bookshelf and her computer opened up and stripped of its hard drive. They'd even unmade her bed and, to judge by the way the mattress sat crooked, checked underneath it as well.

No wonder her dad had had her journal, her privacy was ripped apart and strewn all over her bedroom.

She didn't even realise that she'd clenched her fists until she brought them up to try and hold in the scream clawing at her throat. Anger made her tremble and ache to lose herself in her forms again, to rush down the stairs and make them pay for this intrusion.

_'Like you made Sophia pay?'_

As unwanted thoughts went, that one was like a bucket of cold water. It was also a damn good point. One Ward had kicked her ass and she wanted to fight Triumph, multiple PRT agents and who knew what else? Not a good idea. Staring out the window at the thick snow flakes that had begun falling since she'd entered her house, Taylor reminded herself of exactly what had happened the last time she let anger make her choices for her. The wound in her side might have healed but the memory of the bolt was still sickeningly fresh.

It was getting dark and the clouds suggested that the snow might pick up at any moment. Time to hurry.

Her big duffel bag was poking out of the closet instead of folded up at the back like she had left it, which was annoyingly convenient. She unzipped it and started by putting one of her towels in, then she set about sorting through her clothes for the best of her meagre wardrobe. She didn't bother with her worn coat, but the mutated blob of a wool jumper that her mom once knitted her went in there alongside the stacks of jeans and t-shirts. Underwear was a simple matter of scooping everything out of two drawers and stuffing the lot into a side pocket of the bag, then she had a thought and dug a particular pair of panties out.

Shoving the Armsmaster brand garment back in the drawer was petty, but she'd be damned if she wore anything with a hero on it from now on.

Her spare trainers went in along with the open toed wedges that amounted to the only nice shoes she owned that Emma hadn't ruined. Her purse was lost along with everything she'd worn to school, but her spare purse was nicer anyway and she hadn't brought more than a few dollars at a time to school in months.

Thinking of money, she felt along the thick wooden pillars on either side of her bookshelves and suppressed a triumphant laugh. The knot that stuck out a foot up one of pillars was still there! Poking a finger into it popped the knot into the hollow inside, then a quick tug pulled off the entire panel. Nestled inside was her ID, which she almost picked up before realising it was useless to her now, the paltry hundred and forty dollars that she'd saved and a little tin of keepsakes with her name messily painted across it. It was mostly random junk that she'd treasured as a pre-teen, but it still went in the bag.

That seemed like just about everything, though she couldn't resist grabbing a few books now that she faced a high probability of never seeing her collection again. A few favourites, her mom's copy of 'To Kill a Mockingbird' and the half dozen books her dad had gotten her for Christmas that she'd never felt up to reading. It was a significant weight but it all fit and she could boost her strength as she liked.

Still, she was bent over the bag and debating whether to remove some of the books when the door swung open a few feet from her.

The woman in the hall didn't look like she'd been expecting a teenage villain dressed in mud and a towel. Most of her armour was off and she held a toolbox with 'Evidence' stencilled across it in one hand. However the other hand held another of the same guns that she'd seen the other agents carrying. This close it looked a hell of a lot bigger, like it might double as a club when out of ammo, the barrel wasn't even pointed at her and it seemed cavernous enough to swallow her whole.

Taylor was grabbing for the woman an instant later, the barrel rose fast and the woman dropped the evidence box as she stepped back into the hall. She grabbed the first form that came to mind and leapt on legs that were still thickening with shifting muscle. The agent met her charge confidently and was shoved back into the wall like a child wrestling a bear. Plaster cratered with the impact, adding dust to the mud all over Taylor. Before the woman could recover, Taylor slapped a hand to her cheek and grabbed the least threatening form she could find. The stunned woman found herself as a Chihuahua completely wrapped in PRT-issue armour while Taylor dashed back into her room.

Yells from downstairs demanded 'Agent Forstead' report as she tore off the towel and fumbled it into the bag. Footsteps thundered on the stairs while she frantically yanked the zipper closed and slung the strap across her chest. Triumph roared wordlessly in the hall, probably having seen his ally reduced to a handbag dog. Suppressing panic, Taylor focused on a particular form she'd picked out while packing and thinking about how to get back out of the house. The hero made it to her door in time to get a glimpse of the fur rippling across her body, then she was putting her plan into action.

Of course, she'd been planning to open the window before jumping through it. Glass and snow tumbled through the air around her, the former slicing where her fur didn't ward it off, then there was a roaring in her right ear and she was tumbling off to the side.

She crashed into a hedge and clamped a hand over her bleeding aching ear, she didn't hear the slap of her palm against her head. She didn't hear anything from that side of the world.

_'It's fine, I'll heal it later!'_

Jerking her gaze up to her bedroom, Taylor saw Triumph framed by the jagged remains of the window. His lion-themed armour put her in mind of a gladiator and she had to admit that he looked good in it. Brave, strong, heroic. He opened his mouth and she wondered if this was when he would ask her to surrender quietly, offer her a friendly voice and a listening ear.

"Taylor!" Her dad's voice shocked Triumph as much as it did her, both of them jerked their heads towards the kitchen door where he was trying to shove past the surprisingly broad shouldered lawyer.

A patch of snow between her and her dad exploded in yet more mud and grass and Taylor abruptly remembered that Triumph's -well publicised- power was sonic blasts projected from his mouth. Her ear throbbed and she realised that she wasn't getting any calls to surrender from this guy. Even Sophia had said something before attacking her.

_'Asshole.'_

She was in motion before the next blast came, diving over the fence and getting the Smiths' apple tree between her and danger. Her form shifted for less strength and as much toughness as she could manage, then a little less toughness so she could add regeneration. As soon as her damaged ear began itching, she sprinted for the corner of the Smiths' house.

The cops from the car in front of their house were running down the side of it when she rounded the corner, guns up and shouting as soon as they saw her. Taylor didn't slow down, not even when both of them opened fire and a pair of fists slammed into her chest hard enough to knock the breath out of her lungs. Pushing herself through the pain, she closed the gap before either of them could fire a second time and slapped at their guns. Hard.

Judging by the sounds they made behind her, the blows had hurt badly, but they didn't shoot at her so she wasn't sure if she cared all that much. Getting shot seriously fucking hurt, even in her current form. She didn't even want to think about what might have happened if she hadn't taken the time to shift herself tougher.

Running out onto the street, Taylor ignored the road and held course for the Hensens' yard. They'd easily box her in on the roads, but she could probably move a lot faster from one yard to another. When no cops or agents greeted her in their back yard Taylor decided to abandon toughness in favour of four legs and more speed. Tightening the duffel's strap held it close to her back, then she was shifting, falling to all fours a lot closer to the ground.

Now she could run properly. Quick strides carrying her through one increasingly snowy garden after another. Long low jumps arcing her over fences despite the weight on her back. She didn't pay attention to the contents of each plot, whether they were occupied or not didn't matter nearly so much as whether she could hear the sounds of pursuit, sounds that she only heard once or twice and even then the sirens were distant.

It seemed hardly any time at all before the yards abruptly became streets, the buildings gaining several floors in the same transition.

Taylor kept running.

The snow was falling thick and fast now, a quiet blizzard that obscured vision even better than the earlier rain. She wondered if they'd given up the chase now that visibility could be measured in inches. Then she got back to running, increasingly unsure if she was running away from them or towards something else...or maybe just running because when she stopped she'd need to think and none of the thoughts were going to be happy ones.

She couldn't even recognise streets any more. The sidewalk and the road were distinguished by the slightest bump in the snow, cars were lumps of white with the occasional patch of colour, all around her more and more tumbled out of the sky. Still she kept moving.

Even when her chest began to stutter with each new breath. Even when the air stopped coming and going smoothly, rasping at her teeth and burning in her throat, even as her legs rose and fell with less and less rhythm.

Then she hit a patch of ice beneath the snow and she was tumbling through the powder, smacking bits of herself on the hard ground beneath.

She curled up where she lay, strained against the constriction of her bag's strap...then she went limp. As though waiting for the cue, the adrenaline that she had been running on for the last few days finally ran out. Without it, Taylor realised that she was starving, she was exhausted and she ached all over like she'd spent the entire time in a ring with Alexandria. She was cold, dirty and soaked to the bone.

_'I don't care.'_

Fur rippled and bones flowed as she returned to human form. The snow's chill had been harsh against her fur, against bare skin it was a moment of burning and then numbness spreading over her.

_'It doesn't matter.'_

She remembered the tail she had formed earlier and found it in the sea of possibility beneath her skin, twining it around herself and hugging it tight.

_'I'm probably going to freeze to death and...I just don't care any more.'_

The bag, the chase, her home, it all blurred together in her thoughts and finally tears welled up in her eyes. She couldn't run from them any more. Couldn't shake them off or distract herself. So she curled into a ball in whatever corner of the Bay her thoughtless wandering had brought her to and she sobbed as the darkness fell.

Light blanketed her without warning. Not some harsh PRT spotlight or even a streetlight, this was a warm glow and accompanied by a little heat against her back. Turning instinctively to get it on her front as well, Taylor found herself facing an open door and a familiar girl in a familiar coat. A familiar door as well, she'd rushed out of it earlier that day after all.

Another time and she might have been mortified to be naked in front of a girl she hardly knew. Right then she was too exhausted to feel something as active as embarrassment. Maybe if the boy had been there as well, but not for a girl. Especially not for one as nice as Rachel.

Of course Rachel had been nice before Taylor had spat in the face of a generous offer and run off to do something supremely stupid. Now...

The auburn haired girl crouched beside her, looking like she had no idea what was going on or what she was looking at. The same confusion that she'd worn earlier. Maybe it was the tail?

"You left"

The words brought some life back to Taylor. Enough for her to stir a little, to try to get up. A warm hand on her shoulder made her go still. It was a gentle grasp, enough so that Taylor wondered if she might not have offended the other girl quite as much as she thought she had.

"I know...I'm sorry...I..."

Finally Taylor managed to bring herself to meet Rachel's eyes, the gruff expression surrounding them failed to conceal the kindness there; "...I don't have anywhere else to go..."

Rachel furrowed her brow yet again, then shook her whole body like she was trying to get dry. When she stilled, the confusion was gone, or at least buried beneath a clenched jaw and squared shoulders.

Rachel yanked her to her feet with a little more difficulty than Taylor would have expected from a girl who seemed so tough. She didn't look at Taylor, keeping her eyes on the door as she almost dragged the weaker girl inside.

"Come in. It's cold."

The door shut tight behind them. It wasn't long before the snow filled in the place where Taylor had been lying.


	4. Vixen: 1

_Vixen_

What the fuck was the sun's problem? What had she done to offend the weather so badly? Clearly she must have done something because the night long blizzard had ended just in time for the sun to greet her like a lance to the skull.

_'Coincidence? I think not!'_

Sarah buried her head in her pillows. Then, when that failed to block out the glare, she hauled the blankets up over her head and curled up in the warm little cocoon that resulted. Only to moan in frustration that the light was still filtering through to her poor eyeballs. Even muted by a foot or two of snow, the skylight's filth-encrusted glass and her winter blankets, the glare still pushed through her eyelids to turn her world white.

Finally she pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes to try and shut it out, swallowing the bile that rose with each new throb of her skull. Her hands blocked enough light that her migraine stopped getting worse but it didn't get any better either. Left with no choice but to weather it, she huddled under the sheets and kept her mind as blank as she possibly could.

Eventually the pain drifted away. Her hands relaxed but it was still dark, her power told her she was sleeping, then it told her the real reason why Bobby Grenjel hadn't asked her out back in middle school. She'd intimidated him with her maturity and womanliness and maturity, it had nothing to do with the braces. Reassured by that, she slept peacefully until she was dragged out of bed and strapped to a table and a man made out of snakes and knives bent over her until his breath was hot in her ear and he started cutting and cutting and cutting and-

Lisa clamped her hands over her mouth to hold in the scream. A little of it still bubbled out, but her blankets were twisted tightly around her and they'd muffle the sound enough that the others wouldn't hear.

Even though the constricting sheets felt awfully like straps, Lisa resisted the urge to kick them off and maybe cry a little. It wasn't her first nightmare and it wasn't going to be the one that broke her will. In fact it was a good thing. Her migraine had died down to a dull -easily ignored- drumbeat against her temple and to judge by the light, the nightmare had woken her up in time to get an earlier start than her usual mid-afternoon morning.

So what if the only reason she had the migraine was that bastard's late night call to demand a ridiculous amount of information as soon as possible? So what if she'd confirmed that the cadence and tension of his voice indicated a raging desire to torture her to death? So what if he was the festering root of all that was wrong in her world? What mattered was that she had a full day of free time ahead of her and it was going to be nothing but wall to wall relaxation.

The patch of her wall where her -heavily coded- investigation into his true power and resources was recorded felt like a lead weight on her mind. Yanking her attention out the back of her skull, demanding she get back to work on it. She ignored it with the simple reasoning that she was in no state to investigate further, shoving the whole mess far out of her mind and refusing to give it another thought.

_'Relax, relax, relax.'_

Now that she could look up at it without screaming, the skylight was actually kind of pretty. The snow filtered the daylight into something gentler, bathing the scattered mess of notes and clothes and plates that covered her rugs...

Okay, so maybe she needed to clean her room. Her pillows were scattered around the room, her closet had vomited its contents everywhere and her dressing table was approaching classification as modern art. Every wall was coated in pinned notes, half of them out of date or incorrect, while her laptop was nestled in the lap of an ugly oversized teddy that she'd won two months ago. Over it all hung the not so sweet scent of a teenage girl in a room without much air circulation. Still, she rebelled at the idea of cleaning it on her day off. Not that she really had a problem with cleaning. It just struck her as a violation of her principles as a teenage supervillain. What was the point in lacking any adult supervision if you didn't act like it?

Convictions reaffirmed, Lisa extricated an arm from her sheets and picked a robe out of the bunch hanging off the head of her bed. She considered giving it a sniff, but there was a more reliable measure of wearability available to her.

_Worn three times since previous washing, worn while cooking pasta, stained with tomatoes, stained with-_

Nope. That one was tossed onto the laundry pile that was making it increasingly difficult to open her door. She grabbed the next and let her power out for a brief glimpse.

_Worn once since previous washing, used to clean up spilled soda twice, used to clean laptop screen once_

Another one for the laundry pile. Next.

_Not worn since previous washing_

She cut it off there and began wiggling out of her sheets and into the robe. Once she was kneeling on her bed and properly garbed in case anyone barged in, she began her morning yoga routine. Then stopped thirty seconds into it and decided that she couldn't be bothered today. Maybe after a shower.

Picking her way across the floor to her dressing table, she swept her lockpicking practice off the seat and took a good look at herself in the mirror. She didn't look her best of course, but she didn't look awful either. Certainly not bad enough to need make-up just for the trip to the shower. Her skin was mostly clear and there was no need to hide the slight bags under her eyes from her team, if anything they'd make her look hard working. No one would think that it was because she'd woken at dawn and slept poorly afterwards.

Lisa glared up at the reason for her uncharacteristic hours. Getting the room with the only skylight outside the living area had seemed like such a victory back when they were divvying up who got where. Of course she'd known she would need black out curtains or shutters or some such, but that hadn't seemed like a great obstacle. Like most people she hadn't considered the amount of DIY involved in a secret lair that you wanted to keep secret.

Since she lacked the time, skills or inclination to do it herself, she was left with no options other than to save up blackmail material until she could make Brian do it.

Until then she just had to deal with the light when she overused her powers. It was either that or move into the storeroom and there was no way she was cleaning that out by herself.

Lisa got up and grabbed a towel. She was almost out the door when she remembered the cold metal floor of the corridor running between their rooms, spurring her to quickly dig out her fluffy slippers from under the bed. The others must have stuck the big heaters on out in the main room because the hall wasn't nearly as cold as she expected, it still wasn't comfortable enough to linger and she rushed for the bathroom and hopped straight into the shower the moment it was running.

Her shriek tested the loft's soundproofing to its limits.

Glacial water was bad enough when you were expecting it, the surprise had her throwing herself against the wall of the shower to try and get away. She banged her shin on the taps but managed to avoid most of the spray as it slowly, oh so slowly, heated up. Eventually it got hot enough for her to wash, something she did as quickly as possible because with the sleep shocked out of her she remembered what would come next.

Bodywash, rinse.

Shampoo, rinse.

Conditioner, rinse, and done!

When she stepped out with a victorious fist pump, the water was rapidly going from comfortably hot to scalding.

Honestly it was to be expected of a shower that they'd installed themselves, even if the underlying plumbing had all been put in properly by the building's previous owners. Though she supposed their risky shower did help to wake them up in the mornings. As she walked back to her room there was certainly an energised bounce in her step that hadn't been there before. In fact she was feeling good enough that she went through with her yoga after all, throwing on sweat pants and a t-shirt for twenty minutes of attempting to contort herself into a pretzel.

If asked under considerable duress, Lisa might admit that she wasn't very good at it.

Finally it was time to get ready for a day out. She had a particularly cute top that she hadn't gotten a chance to wear since she bought it, one that she suspected would go well with her favourite peasant skirt. Setting them aside she quickly applied some light make-up, just a bit of lip-gloss and enough conditioner to hide the bags under her eyes, then ran a brush through her hair until it behaved. While she dressed Lisa thought to add thick purple leggings and a pair of mittens for the cold.

Looking herself over one last time, Lisa couldn't resist twirling in place. She looked great. Everyone who saw her was going to see someone confident and happy and not even a little bit terrified of her mysterious boss. With that in mind she grabbed her boots and jacket and headed out the door.

_'I should swing by Dana's place, see if she's finished that sculpture yet. Then I'm thinking a coffee on the Boardwalk and some light shopping. Oh, I wonder if the ice rink's open?'_

Walking out of the hallway put her squarely in the kitchen area of the Undersiders' secret loft, a contrast between expensive materials and amateurish assembly, which was separated by a long counter from the lion's share of the living space. That space was filled on one side with the oversized table on which they did their planning and on the other with several couches, armchairs and a coffee table clustered around a massive television and every games console Alec had been able to get his hands on. However after being trapped in their base overnight by the snow, Lisa had been certain that her teammates would all have headed out for some fresh air.

Finding Alec sprawled in an armchair and playing something with lots of explosions on the big screen, that wasn't too unexpected, but finding Rachel and Brian still inside -sitting at the kitchen counter and the planning table respectively- was a shock. Rachel never waited this long to take her dogs for their morning walk and Brian should have been desperate to go check on his sister after a snowstorm like last night's. Instead Rachel was moodily slicing fruit into her muesli and Brian was brooding over some kind of paperwork.

_Brian working on custody application, already done, been done for weeks, delaying because_

_'Not important, why is he here?'_

_Busywork, has nothing to do, cannot leave, no one allowed to leave_

"Guys." She blurted out; "Uh, why aren't we allowed to leave the loft?"

Of course she could just keep using her power but she was flirting with another migraine as it was. Not to mention that if she asked then she could argue against whatever it was much more easily.

It was Alec who replied, "Look outside."

Brian elaborated, "The snow hasn't been cleared yet, so if we leave then its going to be pretty obvious that this place is occupied."

"How obvious could a bit of snow make it?" Lisa said, mostly because she could feel her plans slipping away and she wasn't ready to let them go yet.

"There's almost three feet of snow piled against the door Lisa, we'll have to dig ourselves out as it is." She imagined her lovely day of fun being buried deeper and deeper with every word.

"But-!"

"Sorry, I need to get back to work on this."

_'No you don't. I know it and I know that you know I know it!'_

Telling him that was pointless though, it wouldn't change anything other than to antagonise him for no good reason. Brian had enough stressing him out already. What with his parents and his sister and trying to keep Rachel and Alec in line, their fearless leader existed in a constant state of desperately needing to get laid or drunk or high or anything else that might unwind him a bit. Right now? With his sister fresh off a night stuck at one of their parents' places? Lisa was a little concerned that he might explode. So poking him for a reaction was out due to being excessively cruel.

_'Here lies my beloved plans for the day, cut down before their time. Survived by a day of boredom and boredom.'_

Messing with Rachel was also not an option, mostly because experience showed that Rachel responded to verbal prodding with violence and Lisa liked her nose as it was. Which left Alec as her entertainment for the day.

Sure he might have muted emotions. That just made it more of a challenge to get on his nerves. The imaginary Mr and Mr Wilbourn didn't raise no quitter.

Newly pumped up, Lisa skipped across the room to the back of the couch nearest to Alec and vaulted it to land butt first on some nice soft cush-

_yelp!_

Lisa shot to her feet as quickly as she'd come down on the very bony not-a-cushion, but the damage was already done. The fifth person in the room was currently in the form of a slender black wolf, not that that made the hurt in her eyes any less obvious.

"Oh god, I'm so sorry Taylor! I didn't see you, I'm sorry! I'm really sorry!"

It was a lie of course, Lisa had seen her. She'd just forgotten that they had taken in a second fugitive last night and when she saw the black shape on the couch she had assumed it was a cushion. Still, actually saying as much would be pretty hurtful for a girl fresh from losing her entire life, plus whatever abuse it was that she'd been suffering before that.

_'I'm such an asshole.'_

She reached out without thinking, trying to reassure Taylor that it had just been an accident, then froze when the other girl shrank away from her hand.

_'Right, she doesn't like attention and there's no way she'll be up for touching so soon after those injuries. I need to calm down and stop crowding her.'_

Taking a deep breath Lisa stepped back and apologised in a more level tone; "I'm sorry Taylor, I didn't mean to do that."

This time she got a reaction, the hurt fading away before Taylor lifted and dropped a paw. It took a moment for Lisa to translate it into a human gesture, waving her off.

Certain that whatever Taylor was feeling, bringing more attention to it wouldn't help, Lisa sat down on the other end of the couch from her and resisted the urge to put her head in her hands and groan. From what she remembered of reading the girl last night, it would be a very bad idea to start tossing verbal barbs back and forth with Alec right in front of her. So it was time for her back-up entertainment.

Grabbing her spare laptop from the coffee table, Lisa tapped in the random sequence of her current password then started setting up the maze of false leads and obfuscation that she used for her more illicit browsing activities. All the while examining Taylor from the corner of her eye. She looking like she was watching Alec's game, but it didn't take long for Lisa to see through that. It was just something to stare at, she wasn't actually paying any attention to the what was happening.

_Thinking about her life, thinking about her father, thinking about her school, thinking about her mother_

Lisa suppressed a wince at the latest use of her power. Much as she enjoyed using it, last night took too much out of her for any more casual inferences. She could figure out the rest on her own anyway. Taylor was depressed and would probably sit right where she was for the rest of the day unless Lisa did something to snap her out of it.

As the last piece of her labyrinth came together, Lisa wondered if that was as good an idea as it initially sounded. Sure it would be more comfortable to sit beside her if she wasn't miserable, but Lisa had enough experience with world destroying grief to wonder if Taylor might just need time to work through it of her own accord.

It wasn't like Lisa had much idea where to start helping her even if that was the right course of action. Just about every option she could give Taylor was wildly illegal and she doubted that the depressed pseudo-werewolf was eager to add to her crimes. Not to mention Lisa wasn't sure if enabling her would be a good idea even if she was willing. Taylor's readiness to drop the nuke and reveal a Ward's identity the day before still weighed on her mind, giving her any more temptation felt like a recipe for disaster.

_'Or Maybe,'_ Lisa thought bitterly as the PRT camera feeds came online; _'I'm just pissed off about the kind of info Coil made me put together last night and I don't want to revisit it with little miss psycho-Ward's victim.'_

He hadn't asked for Shadow Stalker's identity -a damn good thing because she knew it now and he always seemed to know when she was lying to him- but a lot of what he had asked for came very very close. The terms of her probation were at least protected by the spirit of the Unwritten Rules, if not by their hypothetical letter. The GPS data for her patrols was hardly any better.

Sophia Hess might be a sadistic asshole with a bad habit of shooting people Lisa knew, but being snared in Coil's plans was a fate she wouldn't wish on the fucking Simurgh.

The one good thing about last night was that she hadn't picked up any trace that Coil knew Taylor was with them or that he even cared where the runaway was, a state of affairs she had every intention of maintaining.

Lisa returned her attention to the cameras and tried to focus on the hilarity of Agent Smyth's continued attempts to tempt Agent Forstead into going on a date with him. The guy wasn't bad to look at but he clearly had no idea how to talk to other people. No wonder he never got assigned to the tour routes.

She'd picked apart two more budding office romances and moved on to determining who was stealing the most stationary when Rachel thumped down in one of the armchairs. Her dogs followed along and settling at her feet after several cautious looks to Taylor. The butch girl was carrying her breakfast with the hunched shoulders of every starving street kid Lisa had ever known, though she had to know none of them were going to try and steal it. She was the only one who even liked muesli.

_Protective of food, protective of fresh food, enjoys fresh food, enjoys fresh fruit, enjoys fresh cooking, enjoys_

Lisa grabbed her forehead and hissed in pain.

_'Motherfucker...'_

Beside her she felt the couch shift as Taylor perked up. Her power grabbed at the input and she had to haul it back frantically before it got going again.

She'd let her guard down and now she was going to be paying for it for the next hour or two. Remembering Taylor beside her she turned and managed a smile, probably not a very convincing one but it seemed to do the trick judging by the way Taylor slumped back down.

When she'd gotten as used to the pain as she was going to get, Lisa opened her eyes and got back to her reality show slash soap opera. It wasn't pulling her in as much though, and not just because Rachel's noisy chewing and Alec's game were distracting her.

Rachel's fixation on her food was suspiciously constant, she was completely ignoring how Taylor kept glancing over at her then going back to her cloud of misery. Except that every now and again it would be Rachel that glanced up. She would get the same look she did when she was examining her dogs, then she looked confused, then finally angry before she returned her attention to her food.

Any other time Lisa would have been all over it. Trying to figure out exactly what each micro-expression meant and how she could possibly leverage that understanding to help Taylor with her feelings and maybe even make yet another attempt at getting through to Rachel. However her power reacted to her trying to figure things out, the more she puzzled at something the more it strained to bypass her control and offer her the answer -or more commonly, a few dozen possible answers- unprompted. The more she cared about the solution, the worse it got.

Normally that just made it very hard to enjoy her favourite detective stories. Right now it was making every fresh wave of clues batter her control and sooner or later it was going to break through and her headache was going to turn into a true migraine.

Shame coiled in the pit of her stomach as she backed out of the PRT servers and rushed to shut down her laptop. Mumbling about her bed, she left the computer where she'd been sitting and walked quickly over to the bedroom hallway. As soon as she was out of sight Lisa practically broke into a run, slipping through her door and hurling herself into bed fully dressed.

Ignoring the sense that she'd just failed some cosmic test, Lisa curled up beneath her sheets and tried to clear her mind. Wishing all the while that she'd just stayed in bed to start with. Who the hell had she been kidding with her grand plans for the day? If the snow hadn't stopped her then her power would have driven her back home inside of an hour.

_sigh_

_'Sometimes having superpowers sucks.'_


	5. Vixen: 2

First impressions were critically important. Her mother used to go on and on about them every time she was brought out to meet some new business partner or family 'friend';

"You only get one chance Sarah."

"You have to seize the moment Sarah."

"You must try to be more like your brother Sarah."

"You don't want to let me down, do you Sarah?"

Still, no matter the source, the lesson was a good one. First impressions mattered, even if they weren't technically the first time you'd met someone. Lisa doubted that Taylor had much impression of her from their actual first meeting, not with how much she'd been going through at the time. So it was a good bet that sitting on her would be what Taylor remembered most.

Lisa filled her room with the biggest and most pitiable groan that she could manage. It had been dark again when she woke up, she'd yet to muster the energy to check her phone for the exact time but dark meant that it was at least late afternoon of the same day, probably later.

_'Maybe I've gotten lucky and it's a thousand years later. All my problems are gone and I can use my knowledge and my power to rule the savage utopia of the future.'_

Finally managing to raise her head from the pillow she'd slumped into, Lisa spat out a few strands of hair and used her sleeve to wipe the drool off her chin. This time the migraine really did seem to be gone, leaving her clear headed enough to decide against leaving her room until morning. No matter what, she needed to stay away from anything that might tempt her to use her power until she was fully recovered.

Proving that the universe was out to get her, immediately after she made her decision there was a hesitant knock at her door.

She stifled the reflexive groan. Only one of her team ever bothered knocking and Brian wouldn't be so quiet about it. Meaning that it was their guest at her door and greeting Taylor with a sign would be the perfect way to cement an impression of her as the bitchy Undersider.

Halfway to the door Lisa remembered that she had slept in her outdoor clothes and whirled to check her appearance in the mirror. The top was okay, but her skirt was way too showy for a casual impression and her leggings were uncomfortably warm now she was paying attention. Shrugging out of her clothes, she grabbed her nicest pair of sweatpants, pulled a random T-shirt over her head and hauled a brush through her hair until it behaved. With that done Lisa glanced at the mirror a final time.

_'Ah, maybe this is too casual. I don't want her to feel like she's intruding...maybe jeans and a bit of make-up would be better?'_

The knock came again while she was still debating her approach. It managed to sound even quieter the second time. Quiet enough that it occurred to Lisa that Taylor might take a lack of answer as a negative answer. Hell, she might have already left.

Desperate not to make the poor girl feel any worse than she already had, Lisa rushed for the door and yanked it open with an apology already rising to her lips.

It stalled in her throat at the sight that greeted her.

The plate with sandwich garnish drew her gaze first. Skinny little bundle of salad and bread that it was, the girl holding the plate still tried to hide behind it. Taylor was humanoid again, any further details hidden beneath an oversized hoodie and loose sweatpants, both of which must have come out of the bad slung over her shoulder. She wasn't much shorter than Lisa but she still managed to look like a child, lost and unsure.

For a panicked second Lisa fumbled to make sense of the food and the bag and thought that the other girl had brought her a snack to say goodbye. Then she gave herself a mental slap and held back her power while she took a real look at the new cape.

She was hiding behind the plate alright, trembling with nervousness. Her bag was most likely an expression of that nervousness. Not a sign that she was intending to leave. She would want to keep her last remaining possessions close at hand. There were probably a few sentimental items in there. Not many though, those clothes shouted practical almost as loudly as they screamed victim.

_'A poor victim at that. Not to mention tasteless.'_ whispered the snide little voice that was equal parts Sarah and her mother, clinging to her thoughts with a leech's tenacity and charm. Lisa ignored it with the familiar blend of self-loathing and pride. Life on the streets had taught her a lot of things that her parents would never have thought to, like how much a fashion sense was really worth.

Yanking her thoughts back on track, Lisa joined the last few dots. The way Taylor clutched the plate had her power practically begging to whisper answers in her ear. It was almost reminiscent of Rachel...

The lump in Lisa's throat redoubled as she made the connection.

"I'm guessing none of the others are back yet." She noted absently, unable to tear her gaze from the sad little sandwich.

"O-oh! I'm sorry, I mean uh. I-I can pay!" The panic in Taylor's voice snapped Lisa's gaze to her eyes. They were wide and scared and a perfect match for the rapid patter of her voice; "Since no one was around I didn't know if it was okay or not and-!"

"Shh." Lisa interrupted as gently as she could. Resisting the temptation to use her power, she opted to take the long route to finding out what the hell Taylor was thinking. "Now take a breath and explain from the start, please."

"Um, I woke up and I was alone and um, well I would have asked if it was okay I'd known you were still here but since I don't know that you were I just..." Awkwardly trailing off, Taylor gestured with her plate to fill in the silence.

"You can pay?" Prompted Lisa. Perhaps she was just tired but it had seemed a really odd thing to say. Did Taylor's power mess with her ability to talk or something?

"Y-yeah, I have money right here so I can pay you back for the food and I guess for letting me crash on your couch and-"

Lisa didn't hear the rest. Her power had slipped the leash exactly long enough to blurt out just what Taylor meant when she said that she had money with her.

_More than a hundred dollars, saved up a little at a time, less than a hundred and fifty dollars_

Sentimentality wasn't something that Lisa had held onto much of, but even if she'd sooner give Coil a big wet kiss than admit it, there was definitely something in her eye after discovering the extent of Taylor's funds. After hearing the other girl so desperately avoid mentioning her obvious hunger. It brought back memories she tried very hard not to dwell on.

Sarah had taken a lot more than a few hundred dollars with her when she had fled her home, all of it stolen according to the law and stolen back according to what Sarah knew to be right. Of course she'd splurged for a few days after her initial flight -a carefully planned route of buses, trains and endless false leads- was over, thinking herself clever and restrained when she ran through a mere two hundred dollars in her celebration.

It hadn't taken her long to start cursing herself for that waste, only slightly longer than it had taken her to realise just how expensive being a teenage runaway really was. Funds that she'd expected to last for at least a few years had been drained within three months. Every avenue that she knew of for making more money with her power had been closed to her increasingly desperate attempts to replenish her funds.

Until the day came that she had put what she had left back in her pocket and decided that she'd rather spend a night on the streets than wake up in a motel without any idea where her next meal was coming from. That night she'd cried herself to sleep in a dank old warehouse telling herself over and over that things would be better in the morning.

Instead she'd woken up with concrete at her back, agony in her muscles and sharp steel at her throat. Then the steel was gone and she had curled into a ball and thanked every deity she'd ever heard of that all she'd lost was her money.

Three days without food had marked the first time she begged.

One week had been enough for her to start searching through garbage, not that it had gotten her much more than a beating from some chefs and a day of vomiting her food-poisoned guts up, choking on bile and shivering and muttering through the sobs that they were wrong, she wasn't a thief, she had her principles and she would never ever steal. She was better than that.

Eleven days of a cramping stomach and weak limbs and she'd begun wishing that the thief just stabbed her and let her die quickly.

After fifteen days without food, that she hadn't subsequently puked up, she'd been so out of it that her power was the only reason she even knew how long it had been. Then without any idea where she was going she had staggered out of an alleyway and spotted a café terrace filled with tables and chairs and people that she'd once have mimicked her mother in sneering at for being poor. Guided by her power she had spotted one of them walking away from their table, leaving a few notes scattered on top of the bill and a handful of fries still uneaten.

By the time she realised what she was doing or questioned if she had the strength to do it, Lisa Wilbourn was dashing past that table and clutching everything that she'd been able to grab from it. Finding shortcuts and blindspots turned out to be easy when she had her power saved up and ready to use, then she'd been left in a blind alley with pursuit lost and hands full of crumpled notes and squashed fries. All she remembered of the money was that it hadn't been much, but the taste of those fries remained perfectly preserved in her memory, salty and cold and the most wonderful thing she'd ever eaten.

The first thing she ever stole.

Shaking herself out of the memory Lisa found that Taylor had taken her lack of attention as confirmation of her perceived debt and she was no holding out a tired old ten dollar bill with the grip of someone who knew damn well they couldn't afford to part with it. It occurred to Lisa to try and explain to Taylor that she couldn't afford to be that casual with money in her situation, even if she didn't realise that was what she was doing. To explain that there was no reason to feel guilty for emptying their fridge, let alone for taking such a meagre amount from it. Then that little voice spoke up, _'How long would that honour of hers last if she was really truly hungry? A week? A few days?'_

Lisa had grabbed Taylor's hands then, pushing plate and money back towards the other girl as casually as she could. Then she'd thought better of it and snatched up the plate, looking at it like it had personally offended her and speaking before Taylor could draw any wrong conclusions.

"What kind of villains do you think we are? If we only gave you this much to eat then it'd take months to fatten you up for the barbecue!"

Taylor's look of utter confusion reminded Lisa that it might not be the best time for jokes, so she took the other girl by the hand and lead her through to their kitchen with the hopping gait of a girl who had forgotten how cold the floor was and was wishing she'd thought to put slippers on.

Arriving at the blessedly heated and wooden-floored space of the main loft, Lisa made a beeline for the kitchen and plonked the plate down on a countertop before throwing open the fridge. Then she had proceeded to pull out just about everything that wouldn't require more preparation than putting it between two slices of something else.

When Taylor started to voice a question she had cut her off with a smile and a firm request to grab some plates. When Taylor took a step towards her original sandwich Lisa had stepped in to pile an assortment of meats and an abundance of condiments in the other girl's arms. When Taylor finally managed to put them all down and extended the hand still holding that ten dollar bill, Lisa decided that subtext was lost on the other girl and there was no choice but to risk embarrassing them both by talking about it.

She put down most of a roast chicken and looked Taylor dead in the eye before speaking, "Taylor. I know that you're going through a lot right now. I understand more than you might think, which means I know that you're probably feeling all kinds of worried and off balance and questioning everything. Especially us. Which I totally understand...but you don't need to. Now we said you were our guest and that means you can have whatever you damn well please and you don't have to ask anyone, now I'm in the mood for pigging out and I think you might enjoy joining me."

Taylor spoke up, "Wait, I'm a guest? You mean you guys don't mind having me here?"

"Yes of course you're..." Lisa had a sinking feeling of realisation; "...It was Rachel who invited you in, wasn't it."

At Taylor's nod she continued, "I'm guessing she didn't say much, which is pretty normal for her and would, um, explain a lot. Brian and Alec couldn't have thought to clarify anything of course, stupid boys."

"So it wasn't just her offering me a place to wash off and stay the night? I can really stay here?"

Lisa nodded and shrugged off the embarrassment of having over complicated everything. The fragile little smile on Taylor's face went a long way towards helping with that.

"Now come on, grab as much of the food as you can carry and we'll take it to my room. You can sleep in there until we get the other room cleared out and ready for you."

Without waiting for a reply -the best way to get someone to agree to an offer was to never acknowledge any other possibility, another of her mother's rare words of actual wisdom- Lisa swept up her edible booty and led the way back to her room.

Taylor's look of polite horror when she got a good look at the mess was worth the previous awkwardness.

Before long they were both sitting on cushions in a hastily cleared section of the floor, surrounded by food and with a mindless action movie playing on Lisa's laptop to spare either of them from having to make conversation. Or more accurately, to spare Taylor from making conversation and give Lisa time to figure out how best to go about helping her new friend deal with her violent journey to their loft.

Making it absolutely clear that she could stay as long as she liked had been a good start, as had been the casual mention of putting together a permanent room for her. That would hopefully be enough to keep her with them long term. As to where to go from there though, Lisa didn't have much idea.

It was tempting to just rely on her power, even if that would mean waiting until tomorrow at the earliest to make any significant use of it, but there were limits to what it could give her. Knowing Taylor issues in more detail wouldn't magically tell her how to help with those issues, her power could only give her facts and theories, not ideas or plans.

So it was just her people skills versus a newly triggered girl with all the hair-triggers and landmine topics that that entailed. Definitely time to take things nice and slow, or as slow as she could while also maintaining her life as a full time villain. Somehow Lisa doubted her boss would give her time off from his endless requests to help a new friend avoid a total breakdown.

_'Ah fuck it. I've still got that asshole on my brain and I've seen her stifle a dozen yawns since we sat down. We're not getting any further tonight.'_

Relaxing as best she could, Lisa finished her oh-so-unhealthy meal without breaking the not entirely awkward silence between her and Taylor, then she waited for the end of the movie and suggested that it was time to call it a night.

After averting Taylor's worries at having forgotten to bring her toiletries when she was packing her life into that duffle bag, Lisa dug out everything the other girl was likely to need any time soon including a brand new toothbrush, hairbrush and razor. They took turns using the bathroom to get changed and attend to other needs, Lisa suppressed a chuckle at the pattern of owls on Taylor's pyjamas and it was time for some more sweet sweet sleep.

As she climbed into bed by the light of her lamps Lisa was definitely looking forward to being able to use her power properly again, morning couldn't come soon enou-

"Um."

_'Oh damn. What did I do wrong?'_

"What's up?" Lisa said as brightly as she could manage with sleep so close at hand.

"It's just, do you have a spare mattress or something?"

"Not in here." Lisa replied with more than a little confusion; "I mean you can just sleep in my bed."

There seemed to be plenty of room but just to make sure Lisa scooted up tight against the wall and patted the rest of her bed invitingly. Taylor's expression ran a curious sequence of confused, understanding, grossed out and terrified before Lisa decided that whatever ideas she was getting were probably best cut off before they could get out of hand.

Climbing back out of bed, with more than a little regret, Lisa grinned disarmingly.

"Sorry, I haven't had a friend sleeping over since I was a kid. I guess I forgot that a queen size doesn't fit two that comfortably when they're over the age of twelve. You take the bed and I'll go dig out a mattress and some sheets."

Before Taylor could be predictably polite and refuse to take the bed she was out of the door and halfway to the storage room. The mattress wasn't hard to find but getting to it proved to be another matter entirely, they'd piled the room with boxes and packaging and all the bits of furniture that ended up being rejected from the main loft area.

While she wrestled with half a coffee table that had gotten tangled into a roll of christmas lights she swore none of them had actually bought, Lisa reflected that it had been a humbling day as far as her people skills were concerned. Normally she was a lot better with new people than this. Of course normally she didn't deal with new people while fresh off a crippling overuse of her power, but it felt like more than that.

Things didn't quite match up. The images she'd built of Taylor between the news reports and the girl she'd met, they simply didn't mesh. Not only did that have some worrying implications, it was making it extremely hard to figure out an approach even before taking into account how nerve-wrecking it was to be dealing with someone so recently triggered. She wondered if this was how new parents felt, having something so easily damaged in the palm of your hand and being terrified that you'd mess up and destroy it.

Yanking the mattress through obstructions finally paid off when the last of it gave way with a clatter and a sudden lack of anything countering her tugs. After picking herself up off the floor Lisa hauled her burden out the door and started dragging it down the corridor.

Anyway, all the issues with Taylor didn't even get into where she'd simply been stupid and missed something. Like whatever the hell that had been with the bed. Lisa had a feeling that it was one of those times that her obliviousness to a certain facet of the human experience bit her in the ass, but for all she knew Taylor might just have some lingering issues with sharing a bed.

_'I want my power back. So, so much.'_

Lisa returned to her room to find Taylor lying in her bed looking ready to jump out of it at a moment's notice. Rather than waste time assuring her that she could have the bed, Lisa opted to focus on setting up her mattress with sheets and blankets and abundant cushions. All the while watching Taylor slowly relax out of the corner of her eye.

_'And finally a plan goes off without a hitch.'_

When she finally got into bed and turned out the remaining light, she could practically feel sleep creeping up on her. The makeshift bed was surprisingly comfy and Lisa knew from bitter experience that she could have slept on solid stone in the state she was in. Even the dim moonlight filtering in through her window didn't spoil things.

Surprisingly it was Taylor who broke the silence.

"Lisa."

"Hm?" Lisa sleepily responded.

"What are those notes all over the walls? I-if you don't mind me asking."

"Ah, those. They're just my current investigation notes. You can probably imagine that my power is pretty good for that kind of thing, but I can't use it too much at once and it gets really inaccurate if I focus on one thing for too long. I use a lot of notes to help me follow a bunch of avenues at once, normally it works really well."

"You said normally. Is it not working well right now?"

For a breath or two Lisa was surprised that Taylor had picked up on that. Then she felt bad for assuming her temporary roommate wasn't paying attention.

"I am having a bit of trouble. I'm trying to figure out-" 'What the hell, not like I can tell anyone else.' "-someone's power and its not going well."

"I can imagine how that would be hard. My power makes sense to me but I think it would be a little tricky to explain to anyone else, not that I couldn't it's just I can't think of a way to explain what it's like to use it that isn't missing something. Am I making any sense?"

"Yeah. Apparently it's not uncommon for powers to come with minor extra senses to make sense of it, like I'd explain my power as being like having extra thoughts in my head but really that's not quite it. I mean I can always tell the difference between it and my thoughts. I guess powers tend to look different to other people than...they do...to..."

Lisa barely held back from leaping out of her bed, instead she let her eyes dart to her notes, snatching at the sense of inspiration before it could fade away.

_'That's the whole problem. I've been looking at what his power does but that's not the answer or I'd have figured it out ages ago. I need to look at, at what his experience of it is.'_

_Precognition_

It was a familiar verdict, one that made no sense given his demonstrations and that had convinced her for a while that his power countered direct attempts to determine its nature with another power. But what if that was just his experience of it...

_Precognition, simulation, simulates hypothetical events given initial data_

Finally it made sense, finally all the disparate elements came together to explain why her power was stuck on precognition when everything he did said probability manipulation. She fucking had him at last!

_Simulates events based on initial decision, -her power continued, taking in every scrap of information she had gathered on his limitations and lacks thereof- simulates events in parallel, simulates alternate actions_

_'That makes sense. It would explain how he kept cutting off my escape plans when I first got here, because he can simulate events that would force me to trigger them.'_

_Allows determination of enemies' actions given alternate personal actions, allows determination of allies actions given alternate personal actions, allows determination of personal responses given alternate personal actions_

Her power was running wild and she knew that she should really reign it in for the sake of recovering but she was just so damn happy to have gotten a win against that rat fucking piece of shit. _'Let it have its fun.'_

_Allows experience of events given alternate personal actions, allows experience of events given unwise personal actions_

_'Oooh, that's interesting. I wonder what's he's done with it.'_

_Utilised power to experience overeating_

_'That would explain how he stays so damn thin.'_

_Utilised power to experience narcotics, utilised power to experience sadism_

_'Wha-!?'_ Her thoughts redirected her power without her even noticing it.

_Utilised power to torture random civilians, utilised power to torture employees, utilised power to torture employees for information, utilised power to torture employees for enjoyment, utilised power to torture employees for satisfaction of grievances_

The bottom had dropped out of Lisa's stomach. She felt like she was falling, falling down into all those nightmares of him following through on his threats. Or were those even nightmares at all?

_Tortures me for information, tortures me for fun, _-Lisa barely held back the urge to hyperventilate as the implications hit her-_ tortures me regularly, tortures me whenever I meet his men alone, tortures me when I attend bimonthly meetings_

She made the connection quickly enough that it felt like her power was echoing her thoughts.

_'He's going to torture me the next time we meet.'_

_Plans to torture me again in seventeen days_

The happiness was obliterated, her meagre victory turned to ashes as she realised that he might have already gotten everything out of her. Every plan, every scheme, for all she knew he had gotten every last treasured secret out of her broken lips already. She desperately suppressed her power before it could tell her anything else. If it started described exactly what he'd done to her then she wasn't sure she'd be able to hold onto her meal any longer, a nausea creeping through her that had nothing to do with the slight pain in her head.

"Hey Lisa? You got really quiet, are you okay?" Taylor brought her back to reality. Back to her familiar room that suddenly seemed a hell of a lot less safe without all the others there too.

_'No. No and I'm never going to be okay ever again.'_

"Y-yeah, just tired is all. We should get some sleep."


	6. Vixen: 3

Lisa dragged herself out of bed the next morning with a fire in her heart. Nightmares had tormented her through the night, making her very grateful that Taylor was such a heavy sleeper, though nightmares were hardly anything new. Knowing that they might be realised, that she might be remembering simulated horrors rather than imagining them? That was something new. That was something equal parts terrifying and infuriating.

It was also the very last fucking straw.

Employment under Coil had come with a lot of downsides, more downsides than upsides really. Humiliation, restriction, constant fear, all of those things she had been able to learn to live with to some degree. Perhaps more than she should have allowed herself to. However this discovery crossed the line. It jarred her out of the rut she had worked her way into, the sense of if not comfort then at least familiarity.

There was no more time to waste, Lisa had an almost literal deadline and she had absolutely no plans to stick around for it.

Well, she had no desire to stick around for it. Memories of her early attempts at fleeing the city told her exactly what her chances were if she just ran off half-cocked trying to get out of the Bay. Not to mention that while she could stand to leave behind her neighbourhood friends if it really came to it, she would have felt more than a little guilty about just leaving her team out to dry like that. The three of them were stupid immature assholes, but they were her assholes dammit. They had carved out a place in her battered heart, whether she liked it or not.

Then there was Taylor to think about. Who would keep an eye out for her if Lisa left? No there were just too many reasons why that wasn't an option.

Unfortunately after three days of planning, examining her plans and then discarding them as unworkable and doomed to fail, Lisa was starting to wonder if she had any options at all.

On the tail of a third night with only snatches of sleep, she'd forced herself to face facts. She couldn't run, or hide, or fight. She refused to even consider begging. Which left her with nothing. No options but to wait...

Lisa stared at her ceiling as dawn broke through her window and clenched her fists in silent fury. Then she blew out a gentle breath, mindful of her roommate's slumber, and continued the thought to the only conclusion she had.

Chances were that she was going to be tortured and...she'd just have to hope it stayed in the simulation. With that agonising realisation in mind, she switched her focus to defending herself as best she could.

Even if he could act recklessly in a simulation, that still wouldn't let him achieve the impossible.

_'Right?'_

_Power simulates events given personal actions, simulation limited by personal capabilites_

_'Right.'_

After mulling that over for a while, rolling over to one side and then the other before finally settling back on her back, Lisa resolved to avoid being alone as much as possible. Her team would defend her against any sudden mercenary ambushes, so as long as she stayed close to them at all times, he wouldn't be able to simulate grabbing her. Not that it would help with the meetings, but it would at least cut down on his opportunities.

Of course, if she really wanted to go that route then the best way to stop any simulated torture was to set things up so such attempts would fail. To resolve that if she found herself in that kind of situation then...

She found her eyes drawn to the holster slung over her dressing mirror, drawn to the familiar gun resting within.

The easiest way to...accomplish...the goal in question, would be to...to...well...

An image flashed behind her eyes, a memory she never could decide if she wanted to forget or not. The silence came back to her, the quiet that had replaced Rex's laugh and his yell and his sigh and everything else that she'd loved and hated about him. It had smelt awful, but it was the quiet that stuck with her still. Only broken by that horrible little creak.

_'It's not the same. It's not.'_

Whether or not she could follow through on that kind of resolve...Lisa didn't know...It, it wasn't hard to see the downsides to that plan either. The risks if she thought he was grabbing her when he wasn't. What she might do. What...

Lisa very deliberately broke that train of thought and fixed her gaze on the ceiling. She did her best to find the familiar patterns of wear, but they blurred and twisted until they were unrecognisable. Biting her lip helped her stay quiet, helped her not to think about the hot stinging trails descending from her eyes.

Then that hateful little voice whispered a memory, _'There will be important people there Sarah, I won't have you looking hideous because of a silly little fit. Now where's your concealer?'_

Just like back then, it didn't help her control the tears. So she folded her pillow over her face and muffled the noise as best as she could.

"Damn it..."

"Lisa?"

She froze. Her grief buried by the fear of adding to Taylor's burdens.

"Lisa? Are you awake?"

Hurriedly drying her eyes on the pillow case, Lisa cleared her throat and replied, "Y-yeah! I'm up, just have a- have a bit of a sore throat is all."

"Oh, I thought you said...never mind. Would you like me to get you anything?"

"A glass of water? Sorry to ask."

"N-no, it's not a problem!" Taylor blurted out as she leapt out of bed. The other girl rushed to pull on the robe Lisa had lent her (though it seemed pointless with the t-shirt and shorts that she was already wearing) then dashed out the door.

Suppressing a pang of guilt at her deception, Lisa shed her blankets and grabbed a few items off her dressing table.

Dab up the tears with some tissues, wipes to clear off what remained and then a quick application of foundation to hide the redness. She was just setting it all back down on the dressing table when Taylor burst back into the room with a tall glass of water and concern etched on her face.

"It's no big deal, don't look so worried." Lisa reassured her.

"Are you- yeah of course you're sure. I'm sorry."

Lisa managed a smile, "You don't need to apologise."

"I know, it's just..."

_'Well that sounds ominous.'_

"Just...?"

"Well you've been kinda...I mean y-you've been a bit...preoccupied? For the last few days."

It was pretty obvious she had more to say, so Lisa held back the urge to reply. To rush out an explanation, or, more honestly, an excuse.

Sure enough Taylor continued, "I thought...I thought it might be because of me-"

"No! No, that's not it at all. It was something else. Nothing to do with you."

At the other girl's doubtful look, she added, "I can't really tell you what's going on, but it's nothing for you to worry about. I promise."

Rather than give Taylor time to worry any more than she already had, Lisa slung an arm over her shoulder and took the initiative as she steered both of them out into the hall. She kept her tone cheerful as she declared, "Enough about all that. I say we go grab some breakfast and see about dragging Alec off the big screen so we can watch something we're years too old for. What do you think?"

However when they came out into the main space, it was deserted. No sign of Alec, or any of the others.

"Huh. Normally he's camped out on the sofa for his early morning gaming time. Is he sick?"

Lisa wasn't exactly worried about Alec, that guy would weather an apocalypse just so he could aggravate the other survivors, but more by the idea of a flu in the enclosed and confined space of the loft. Last time one of them had gotten sick it had rapidly spread to the others and given them all a very uncomfortable week.

"Don't you remember?" Taylor spoke up, "He said the day before yesterday that he was camping outside some store for a few days, he wanted to get a new game that's coming out."

That froze Lisa in her tracks.

_'He's been gone two days!? How did I not notice that?'_

Except she knew why she hadn't noticed, enough that she could cut off her power before it shouted the answer. The truth was she hadn't paid attention to much of anything for the last four days. It was no surprise that, looking back, she had no idea what any of the others had been doing in that time. Thoughts of imminent torture had focused her mind like a laser.

_'Fat lot of good it did me.'_

Well it was time to focus on something she could actually do something about. It might be late, but Lisa just had to hope that it wasn't too late. Even if she couldn't save herself it would be nice to help someone else avoid completing their own downward spiral.

So she got back to dragging Taylor to the couch, then left her there while she prepared a breakfast consisting of about ninety percent sugar. Appropriate for the show that Taylor had settled on by the time she got the food over to the couch and sat down with a comfortable distance between them.

After a few minutes of watching a collection of felt puppets sing about the marvels of sharing, Lisa turned to face her breakfast companion and raised an eyebrow. To her delight, Taylor returned it with one of her own and even mumbled, "You said 'something we're years too old for'. You didn't say how many years."

"Touché." Lisa found her grin weakly mirrored and her spirits lifted a little. "I was thinking something within a few years, more middle school than kindergarten."

Despite her clearer instructions, Taylor managed to find two more cringe-worthy shows before dropping the joke and locating a cartoon featuring an abundance of wise-cracking animals. Lisa didn't need any kind of power to see that Taylor had good memories of it, so she stayed quiet and let the other girl enjoy the simple pleasure while she considered how best to help her.

_'She's a lot less judgemental than I think I'd be in her shoes. Or is she just covering it up.'_

Where others had the luxury of asking such a question without fear of the answer. Lisa did not.

_Frustrated at being ignored, frustrated at being frustrated with being ignored, guilty for being frustrated with being ignored, frustrated at being frustrated at being-_

Lisa yanked her power away from the loop and focused it back onto Taylor's mood, onto her fragile expression of happiness.

_Enjoying company, enjoying sense of closeness, enjoying pleasant memories, frustrated by unpleasant memories, distrustful due to unpleasant memories, angry at unpleasant memories, angry at herself for recalling unpleasant memories,_

_'Well that certainly says a lot about her. So what should I d-'_

A heavy hand against her shoulder snapped Lisa out of her thoughts and nearly made her jump right out of her skin. When she turned to look over her shoulder, the owner of that hand was just as surprising.

Rachel was standing behind the couch in a faded t-shirt and a ragged pair of sweatpants, her usual sleepwear. The hesitant expression she was wearing was a lot less usual.

"Morning Rachel, can I help you with something?"

The normal scowl returned, then faltered as she replied, "The show. Can I watch it with you?" Directing the question equally to both of girls on the couch.

Unsurprisingly Taylor stayed silent, clearly ready to follow Lisa's lead. Not that Lisa could see any reason to say no.

Smiling was a bad idea around Rachel, but Lisa tried to inject some cheer into her reply, "Sure, the more the merrier."

Rachel grunted her opinion of that particular saying and clambered over the back of the couch to find a seat between Lisa and Taylor. For a moment Lisa considered trying the communicate to her that Taylor needed some space, only for Rachel to surprise her again by moving away from Taylor. She casually patted the floor and whistled her dogs to settle there, as if she was just clearing the space for them.

_Tense, uncomfortable with proximity to me, more comfortable in centre of couch_

Lisa wasn't fooled. Confused, but not fooled.

Rachel ignored the assortment of cereals, poptarts and pancakes that Lisa had set out on the coffee table. Pulling a banana from her pocket and starting to eat it in a determined silence while she glared at the screen like it had given her dogs flees.

_Relaxing, relaxing due to food, relaxing due to cartoon, relaxing due to enjoyment of cartoon_

_'Hah! Can't get anything past me Rachel.'_

Lisa suppressed the urge to examine Rachel's fondness for the show, unwilling to pry without some kind of reason. Given her fellow teenage hobo's history it wasn't hard to imagine where it might stem from anyway.

Since craning to look around Rachel would be pretty obvious, Lisa opted to settle back and wait for an opportunity to observe Taylor more. Rushing it would just risk scaring the girl off after all. After a while she even felt a little relief from her worries.

The crushing sense of helpless terror was still there. Still clenching her heart and trampling her guts, but it was distant somehow. Held at bay for a while by bright colours and sugar and company that was at least three quarters friendly.

Still all good things come to abrupt and painful ends. In this case it came after almost two hours of cartoons, when all three of them got bored with an ad-break and Lisa began flicking through channels for something else to watch. Landing for on a very familiar image for a chilling instant before she hit the next channel button and hoped against hope that-

"Wait! Wait, please, go back."

_'Dammit Taylor, you couldn't have looked away? Just for a second?'_

Devoid of a good reason not to do as she asked, Lisa switched the channel back to the news and turned up the volume without being prompted. The front view of Winslow High did a damn good job of sucking the cheer out of the room.

_'Well framed though. They got all of the damage to the third floor corridor in one good shot, with the workmen in there it's a good combination of scary and hopeful.'_

Her musing on the PR skill of the media was interrupted by an expert in the field.

"Yes that's right John, the damage has been surveyed and I've been told that students at Winslow will be returning to school next week. Though full repairs could take as long as a month." The reporter coming into focus had the kind of natural glow and tousled blonde hair that only came from over an hour of hair and make-up professionals, along with a very carefully effected expression of sympathy.

"That's good to hear Stacy, and what's the news on the culprit of this attack? Have the PRT released any further information." The disembodied anchor prompted.

"No John. The PRT has maintained its standard policy of minimal information concerning ongoing investigations and the Protectorate have yet to release any further statements since they confirmed Shadow Stalker was first on scene, almost seven days ago."

She gestured off screen and a pretty brunette about Taylor's age stepped into the shot, the girl's eyes clearly tracking whoever was giving her cues.

"However we have Miss Julia Prezi here with us today, she was an eye-witness to the attack and one of those that Taylor Hebert targeted. What's more she was one of the first to have the courage to identify their attacker to the media. Now Julia, could you tell us a little about what happened?"

Lisa's attention was pulled from the repetition of the same narrative the news had been spewing all week by a pained creaking. Then she found the source of the noise and she forgot the news report entirely in her shock.

Taylor was squeezing the arm of the couch in a hand that had sprouted hair and claws, squeezing it hard enough that Lisa was amazed she hadn't torn through the fabric already. Her face was twisted in a rictus of anger, looking almost bestial with fury.

_'Wait, no, she actually looks bestial. Those, those are fangs.'_

In spite of herself, Lisa cringed away from the other girl. Even with Rachel between them...

_'Why isn't...what the hell is Rachel...?'_

The other girl, normally so ready to jump on anything she perceived as a threat, was looking at Taylor -who was almost growling as the girl on screen continued her story- with an expression Lisa had never seen her direct at a human being before. Sympathy.

"Well it's all a bit hazy, but I think that was when Shadow Stalker arrived." Mumbled the girl on screen. She looked torn between delight and terror, and it was clearly taking all the reporter's skill to get the story out of her in a telegenic fashion.

"I understand that she gave a pretty impressive showing in front of you all."

"Yeah, I mean it was really scary, but she just stood there and told us to get out of there, that she'd take care of it."

_'How amazing, she must have another power that let her say a different one-liner to every girl they've interviewed so far.'_

"So it's no exaggeration to say that our city's very own Shadow Stalker saved your lives?"

As if she'd been saving all her composure up for this one reply, Julia broke into an innocent smile and practically chirped, "Not just us, she saved everyone in the school from that psycho. Shadow Stalker is a real hero."

"That's fucking bullshit!" Taylor exploded. Leaping to her feet and stepping forward with her claws raised to-

"Taylor!" Lisa shouted.

She stumbled to a stop halfway to the television, her anger giving way to a look of wide-eyed confusion. Like she didn't know how she'd gotten to where she was standing.

Lisa kept her tone gentle, using her gaze to keep Taylor's attention off the remote as she turned down the volume, "Just calm down. It's okay, no-one here is going to believe them."

Rather than cheering up, Taylor practically deflated at those words. The effect was enhanced by the way her bestial traits melted back into the girl who had raided their kitchen for a mini-sandwich, Lisa noting out of the corner of her eye how Rachel tensed up in sync with the return of Taylor's human form.

She shuffled back to the couch and flopped onto it, glowering in a less terrifying fashion at the muted screen that now showed a repeat of the PRT's last press statement. Lisa recognised it by the presence of Triumph in the background, trying to look calm and confident and blatantly telegraphing his frustration even to those without Thinker powers. She was certain he'd gotten a dressing down from Halbeard for failing to capture a fugitive who practically walked into him.

"Lisa, could you turn it back up?" She couldn't help the dubious glance she gave Taylor. "I-I promise not to get angry again, I just...I need to hear it."

_'Maybe, but I doubt it'll make you feel any better.'_

Even so, she hit the volume and braced herself for whatever the reaction was going to be.

"At approximately five o'clock today the parahuman fugitive Taylor Hebert, aka Runt, was discovered attempting to enter her place of residence. The guard detail assigned to her father prioritised his safety in accordance with PRT protocol and Runt fled the scene. Owing to her power's utility for escape, pursuit was unable to catch her and she remains at large."

A photo of Taylor came up on screen. It looked like a school photo and was at least a few months out of date, not that it made much difference as far as stripping her of her public identity.

"The PRT would like to advise everyone that Runt is extremely volatile and that she should not be approached under any circumstances. If you see her the-"

The picture cut out, Lisa barely aware that she'd hit the power button.

_'Surely you've heard enough Taylor? Either way, I don't think I can let you watch any more of this.'_

Lisa was expecting a long silence, but Taylor spoke up almost immediately.

"They're lying. Why would they...why won't they tell the truth?"

_'I wonder if I was ever that naïve? Probably worse.'_

"Oh Taylor. It's not about the truth. It's about stories."

The look Taylor gave her made it clear what her opinion was, of these particular stories and of any defence of them. Which was a better expression than blank misery, but still not a good one.

"I'm not justifying it, I'm explaining it." Once the other girl's glare eased, Lisa continued, "This is about telling a story. A story that people can believe, that they want to believe."

"You mean a lie."

"No. People tell lies when they know what the truth is and they want it to be something else. People tell stories when they don't know what the truth is, but they know what they want it to be."

"So nobody cares what So-"

"Please don't finish that name." Lisa interrupted, "Please. That's something I'd really rather not know."

"Sorry..." Taylor looked guilty for a moment, then the anger returned, "So nobody cares what Shadow Stalker actually did?"

"Nobody even knows what she did. People don't care about the truth when they think they already know it."

"Well, I could tell-"

"Taylor." Lisa interrupted as gently as she could, "Nobody is going to believe you. Nobody wants to believe you."

Before Taylor could respond, Lisa stood up, squeezed past Rachel and sat on the coffee table so she could look her new friend in the eye.

"Nobody is looking for the truth, not when there's a story they want to believe right in front of them. A story about a hero who acted like a hero and won, and a villain who acted like a villain and lost. The kind of story that people want to hear."

Taylor's voice was very small. "What about the other heroes? Won't they try to find out what happened?"

"Once you get past all the bright costumes and superpowers, the white hats," She paused at Taylor's look of incomprehension, "-the heroes, are basically cops. And like all cops they like to give one another the benefit of the doubt. It isn't even anything sinister most of the time, it's just that their job means they have to really trust one another and that trust doesn't just go away when they get back to base."

Lisa stood up and walked over to the television, staring into the black mirror that it had become.

"People tend to believe the best of the people they put their trust in. The heroes are no different. The Wards don't want to believe that a Ward would do what she did to you, the Protectorate don't want to believe they let a Ward get away with anything like that and they'd all much rather believe that she bravely protected her classmates from a rampaging villain. So as long as most of the evidence points to what they want to believe in, I doubt any of them are going to go digging into any holes in her story."

"It's not fair."

"No. It's not."

_'And you have no idea how much I wish it was.'_

Then Rachel did the unexpected yet again, speaking up from where Lisa had almost forgotten she was sitting.

"Hey, that Julie girl said something about your power."

Taylor looked a little lost, "Huh?"

"Your power. She said you used it on someone else. You can do that?"

"Yeah, I don't really know what it does exactly but I used it on E- On one of the bi- One of the fucks who attacked me. Oh, and a PRT agent at my house."

"Then what's the problem?"

"What do you mean, what's the problem?" Taylor shot back with some heat.

_'Oh fuck.'_

But Rachel didn't explode, or even react to the tone. She just kept talking, "They fucked with you, you fucked them up, and you got away afterwards. So you won."

"I got my ass kicked so badly that I'd probably have died if you hadn't saved me, and it wore off anyway."

Rachel snorted. "Everyone gets their ass kicked sometime. You hurt them more than they hurt you, then you got away. So you won."

Then, apparently satisfied that she'd said all that she needed to say, Rachel stood up walked over to the fridge like nothing had happened. Leaving Taylor looking like she wasn't sure what to think and Lisa feeling a little like the world had skipped a step.

_'Rachel never acts like that. Ever. What the fuck? What in the actual-'_

A painfully familiar ringtone cut through her thoughts, her meagre good cheer draining away yet again.

With a heavy sigh, Lisa turned to face Taylor.

"Sorry, I have to take this. It's our boss."

"You have a boss?"

Lisa nodded and muttered under her breath, "Unfortunately." Before walking briskly to her room and, once the door was firmly closed behind her, answering her cellphone.

"Good morning Tattletale."

His voice caught her off guard, pulling at the threads of half-remembered nightmares. It was so easy to imagine that voice whispering some sadistic crap while he-

"Good morning boss," Lisa forced herself to say, "-I hope you got plenty of beauty sleep."

It was a weak response, but under the circumstances she was quite proud of it. Of course being a complete asshole, Coil didn't even do her the courtesy of getting annoyed.

"I did. Now I have a job for you and your team."

'I'm amazed he doesn't call us 'his team' in these calls.'

"Sure, what do you need stolen this time?" Hopefully something in an office, or at least not another armoured car. Those things were a humongous pain in the ass.

"A ledger."

"Can't you just buy one at the store? Or order one of your minions to do it for you?"

"I thought that was what I was doing." Lisa almost crowed at the break in his detached composure, adding the small victory to her mental tally, "Anyway, this is no ordinary ledger. It belongs to one of the Empire's capes."

_'And there's the other shoe dropping.'_

"Which one?"

"Hookwolf."

"What!?" 'Has he lost his fucking mind?'

"Hookwolf, I would have thought you'd have heard of him."

"Of course I've heard of him, and the ledger you're talking about as well! If you think that the other's are going to agree to a plan where we steal the Empire's master bookkeeping ledger then you don't know them very well! That's fucking suicide!"

"Really? I'd say the same to you Tattletale. I think that they'll be happy to do it for a hundred and fifty thousand."

_'...Holy shit, now that's a payday.'_

She couldn't resist. "Each?"

"No, not each. To split between you, plus the value of whatever else you can get out of the Empire's little treasure house."

_'Their 'treasure house'? Colour me impressed.'_

"You know where the Empire's main stash is? Did you blackmail Kaiser or something?"

"No. I know where it's going to be. Seventeen, Elmore Street, in eight days."

_'Eight days! Wait...maybe...'_

"Eight days? Cutting it pretty close don't you think?"

"I'm sure you'll be up to the challenge."

"I'm sure too. I'm just not sure if I'll be able to make time for our meeting if you want-"

"We can delay the next meeting. I want your entire focus on this job."

It was all Lisa could do not to let her relief show. She had bought herself more time to plan, even if it came with a job that made her go weak at the knees just thinking about it.

"Yes sir Mr Boss man sir. We're on the case."

There was silence from the other end and Lisa wondered if she'd finally annoyed him into having a stroke. Then he spoke up in the same chillingly calm voice as ever. "Just remember not to disappoint me. Sarah."

He hung up.

_Power play, reminding_

_'I know what he was doing!'_

Lisa dropped her phone and slumped face down onto her bed, noting the occasional short hair with a little distaste. Taylor was a nice girl but her sleeping habits weren't kind to sheets. It was amazing she hadn't clawed them to shreds by now.

_'That's good news right there, he would have brought up Taylor before using my name, so he probably has no idea she's here.'_

Any advantage could be the key after all.

_'I have advantages here. I have a cape he doesn't know about. I have time to work with.'_

Lisa rolled onto her back and blew a raspberry at the ceiling just because she could.

"I have a job to plan for."

Hauling herself upright, Lisa scooped up her phone and headed back to the living area as she went over what she would need to do in her head.

Then because Rachel had decided to act like a different person all of a sudden, she found her path blocked by the stocky girl standing in the doorway to the storage room and holding one end of a metal table with some difficulty. Peering around the door frame gave Lisa a clear view of Taylor holding the other end with no difficulty at all.

"Um?"

"She said you guys were going to clear this room for her." said Rachel in a tone that was almost friendly by her standards.

Lisa looked to Taylor again and found the girl blushing a little. She was obviously uncomfortable asking for help, but with the state they'd left the storage room in Lisa knew that she should help out. They'd need her if they were going to get done before midnight.

She thought about what else she had waiting for her to do. The work that was going to be involved in an attack on something as well guarded as the Empire's most prized possessions. The amount of planning she'd have to do, how far she'd need to push her power, all with a tight schedule to keep to on pain of hideous hideous pain.

All of which came after the chore of talking them into accepting the job, though the money would help quite a bit with that part.

She really should just call Brian and get on with it.

She really should...

_'What's the point in being a supervillain if you don't make bad choices now and then?'_

"Just give me a minute to get changed. These are my favourite pyjamas and I'm sure I saw slugs in there when I got the mattress out."


	7. Vixen: 4

"I hate Miss Militia."

"Racist." Was Alec's tired attempt at a rejoinder. He didn't even bother to look back at her from where he was climbing out of the van.

"It's not racist to be annoyed at someone after they shot you." She shot back as she followed him out onto the abandoned factory floor, Rachel trailing behind her amidst a canine mob.

"Totally racist." Came the bland reply.

"You weren't shot, stop whining." Brian snapped over the scrape of the closing shutters. Once they were secured he stalked over with the van keys in one hand and their prize in the other, his helmet already yanked off and held in the crook of his arm.

_Angry at successful job, angry at nature of plan, angry at loss of reputation_

Lisa flapped a hand at him in as she struggled to gather her thoughts, "Yes yes, I know."

"Know what?"

_'Someone's cranky.'_

"That a crossbow bolt hurts worse, I'm just saying that this hurts too. And it totally counts as being shot."

Brian opened his mouth without dropping his scowl, then closed it and seemed to consider his words a little. His expression softened slightly before he replied, "It was a beanbag round Lisa, you're not dying."

"That's easy for you to say. She nailed me right in the tit!" Lisa prodded at her tender chest in demonstration, finding to her complete lack of surprise that it still hurt like hell. "This costume doesn't have a lot of padding you know, I'm gonna have such a fucking bruise and it won't fade for weeks."

"Well, I guess you'll have to put your career as a swimsuit model on hold for a while."

Lisa stuck her tongue out at him, feeling equal parts glad to have chipped away at his bad mood and annoyed that it came at her own expense.

Her mood lightened as all four of them approached the stairs up to the loft and Lisa ducked around Alec just so she could be the first one up them. Even the bolts of pain that each step sent through her ribs and chest wasn't enough to slow her down. Just thinking of her lovely warm soft bed was enough to-

Like running into a smoke bomb, Lisa was overwhelmed halfway up the stairs by a mouth watering bouquet of scents. Roast chicken dominated, tugging at memories of family dinners in days that felt like they belonged to another lifetime. As she cleared the stairs she reflected that in a way they did, though either way she had bigger things to worry about right now.

Like the dishes of various foods that covered the middle third of their oversized planning table to the point that she almost expected it to bend under the weight. Which probably meant the big freezer was empty.

At a glance Lisa -with the eyes of a girl raised on professional chefs- could tell that none of it was cooked particularly well, nor particularly badly. Still there was an undeniable charm to it all. To food that was so clearly home cooked, a stark contrast to the usual fare of the loft, consisting as it did of food that was either ready made or easy to cook.

If she hadn't been in so much pain, it might have been tempting. As it was it just made her want to sigh because as the cook came into view, holding a steaming roast chicken and wearing an apron Alec had bought Brian a few months back over her usual baggy clothes, Lisa could almost feel what was coming next.

"The fuck's all this?" Announced Alec as he came up the stairs behind her, sounding bemused and a little disbelieving.

Taylor froze and visibly groped for a reply, buying herself time by placing her burden down on the table. She failed to find a response before Alec continued with a mocking grin, "Are you having a dinner party while we're out? Inviting all your friends?"

"Um, well I, I figured you guys would be hungry after...and well, I'm...I mean..."

It was Alec's turn to be lost for words, though characteristically he got over it a lot faster. "You cooked...for us?"

Taylor nodded and her mouth began to twitch with the beginnings of a smile.

Then Alec shrugged and walked right past the table, snatching a piece of bread on his way past, without another glance at either it or Taylor. He didn't slow down until he reached the door to his room, and stepped through it with just as little hesitation.

Through it all Lisa found herself with a horribly clear view of Taylor's face as the fledgling smile was driven from it.

_hmph_

Turning at the exhalation Lisa saw Brian standing on the penultimate step and wearing an expression even she would describe as unreadable. If only because she had already used her power quite enough for one day.

He abruptly went from impersonating a statue to doing his best impression of a rolling boulder, stomping forward with his gaze fixed on the corridor to his oft-unused room and striving -it seemed to Lisa- to give the impression that anything that got in his way would be crushed underfoot. Personally she thought his effort was wasted, since he'd picked a route that kept him as far from Taylor as possible without clambering over their furniture.

Finally it was just Taylor, -looking close to tears- Lisa -torn between the needing sleep and not wanting to hurt the other girl any further- and Rachel, -coming up the stairs after finishing her usual lengthy session of belly rubs and dog grooming down on the factory floor- left in the living area. Which was one more Undersider than Lisa would have predicted would hang around for a team meal if she'd been asked a few weeks ago.

_'Seriously Taylor, what did you think was going to happen?'_

As soon as she'd thought it, Lisa felt awful. Taylor barely knew them. How could she know that they'd react so poorly to such a gesture? She'd just been trying to do something for them, to pay them back for the debt she had decided existed despite Lisa's repeated assurances to the contrary.

_'If it's anyone's fault then it's mine. I knew she felt bad about staying here without doing anything, it was obvious she'd do something like this.'_

_skreeeek_

Lisa lifted her head to find that Rachel had dragged out one of the chairs while she was lost in her thoughts. The butch girl glanced up to find both Taylor and Lisa staring at her, actually colouring slightly before she barked, "Well are we eating or what?"

Those words brought Taylor back to life, suddenly she was nodding and hurrying to the kitchen where she turned off the background hum of the oven and hung Brian's apron on the fridge door. Then she was on her way back with three glasses and a jug of what looked like fruit juice and Lisa knew she couldn't just leave.

Wincing at the way every movement tugged at her bruises, she sat down opposite Rachel. Taylor pulled out the seat beside her and set about serving the food, having to stretch across the table to collect Rachel's plate from her. The absence of the others still hung over everything, but...

Taking her plate, Lisa grabbed the gravy boat -_'Homemade too. So she's about a hundred percent better at cooking then I am.'_\- and drowned her chicken, mashed potatoes and peas in it. When Taylor gestured at the other dishes she nodded to each one and soon had a second plate piled high with quite an eclectic mix of side dishes. If she had to stay awake and be without lots of painkillers then she was damn well going to enjoy herself.

They ate in silence for a few bites, then Taylor asked, "Are you alright?"

_'Wait, was that directed at me?'_

_target indicated by body language, target of question is me_

_'Wooo power! Way to come through when I need it.'_

Lisa lifted her head from where she'd almost buried it in her plate and nodded as smoothly as she could. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just a little shot is all."

She immediately regretted her choice of words when Taylor shot up, almost sending her own plate flying.

"With a beanbag!" Lisa raised a hand to ward off the rush of concern, "Not with a bullet or anything, just a beanbag."

Taylor returned to her seat and prodded her food. Which drew Lisa's attention to how much smaller a portion she'd taken. Especially compared to the mountains both Undersiders had before them. At first it hadn't struck Lisa as unusual for her to have little appetite, but as the days ticked by it was seeming less and less like lingering trauma and more and more like she was punishing herself.

"So who was it?" Taylor murmured.

"Who?"

"Who shot you?"

"Oh." Lisa considered her reply, Taylor already had too much resentment for the heroes, adding to it might make her do-

"Miss Militia." Said Rachel, driving Lisa to suppress a frustrated moan. "We were getting away and she got one last shot in. Nearly knocked her off Bentley."

Responding to his name, the bulldog barked excitably then settled down at a sharp gesture from Rachel.

"Hmm, that's not a bad topic really." Lisa mused. "We need something to talk about, so how about it Taylor? Want to hear about the job we just pulled?"

"I already heard you guys planning it though, you were stealing some blueprints right?"

"That was just the goal you heard. The fun part was that we had to do it without anyone realising we did it. Otherwise the plans would be worhtless."

Taylor leant closer, "So how'd you do it?"

"Well you know about Brian's power? How he makes darkness?" Too late Lisa remembered that bringing up Brian and Alec might not be a good idea.

"Um, I, I guess-"

"Well it's not just darkness, it also blots out radiation. Including radio waves."

"So?"

"So most cameras are wireless these days, and it's obvious what he can do to a guard's radio if he puts a sheet of darkness behind them. Point is that Brian can be pretty good at the cat burglar stuff when he needs to be."

"Brian stole the blueprints then?"

"Nope," Lisa grabbed the salt and pepper shakers from the table and thumped them down beside the chicken, "Brian and Alec together, Brian's no good with locks and Alec can distract guards without them knowing a cape is around. Both of them went after the city planning office." She pointed to the chicken, indicating it was now standing for the main target.

"Then what were you two doing?"

Lisa cast around on the table and eventually settled on a ketchup bottle and the almost depleted gravy boat, placing both beside her own plate. "We were the distraction, see the Protectorate patrol routes would have brought them way too close to the target for our liking. Rachel and I hit a jewellery store to draw them away from it."

"Your plate's the jewellery store?"

"Yep." Lisa ignored the note of dubiousness in Taylor's voice, "So we waited for the right time and then we smashed the front door in." She selected a slice of chicken to represent the door and devoured it for dramatic effect. Also because it was tasty.

Rachel grunted unhappily.

"Sorry, then Rachel smashed the front door in."

"If you robbed a jewellery store then where's the..." Taylor didn't seem to know what word to use.

"Loot?" Lisa waited for a nod before continuing, "We didn't steal anything."

"Why not? You were there anyway."

"Jewellery stores are shit." Rachel chimed in with all the grace of a wrecking ball, "Even during the day they don't keep the expensive shit out front. At night it's all locked up."

Lisa grabbed for control of the conversation. "Specifically it's locked up in a vault. The kind with all kinds of security that sucks to get through in a hurry." Swirling a hole in her potatoes with the tip of her fork, Lisa transferred a couple of peas into her model vault.

"I think I get it...that means it wouldn't be suspicious if you took too long to do it."

"That's right, and its small enough that it won't have thrown up too many alarms that there were just two of us. Anyway, Rachel stood guard," Lisa set the bottle so it faced the right way, "-and I got busy on the vault," She poked the gravy boat until it almost touched the potatoes, "-then we just had to wait."

A banana landed beside her hand, Rachel pointing to it and saying, "Miss Militia."

Not to be outdone, Lisa reached across for the same fruit bowl the banana had come from -ignoring how it hurt to stretch- and plucked out an apple, "Clockblocker." And then a pear, "Browbeat."

With her pieces selected, she arranged them such that they formed the points of a triangle around her plate.

"You guys were surrounded?"

"Only technically, we weren't expecting the Wards to be with her, but practice patrols have a bunch of red tape about how they can deploy the Wards if they come across anything. Basically Miss Militia covered the front and the Wards were at the back, though you should be able to tell from my model, I think it's pretty clear."

Both girls she was sharing the table with looked at Lisa's plate with a hefty dose of confusion.

_'Oh so that's how it is? See if I make models next time.'_

"Fine, no more model, short version it is." Lisa tipped her chair back and stared at the ceiling, "We waited, Miss Militia shot some tear gas into the store, we rushed out. We stuck around long enough to sell that we wanted to stay and steal some cheap diamonds, then we got the hell out of there."

"Which is when you got shot?"

"Which is when I got shot. She dropped down on some kind of grapple gun and got a clean shot at me."

What Lisa didn't mention was that if she hadn't been tangled in Bentley's riding straps at the time, then the shot would probably have knocked her right off of the transformed dog, which could well have placed her in custody. It was a sobering thought and exactly the kind of thing Taylor did not need to know about.

"So if everything went well, and you got the plans, why...?"

It was obvious what question she meant. Lisa settled her chair back on all four legs and met Taylor's gaze square on.

"Why were those two such dicks?"

Taylor coloured and shook her head a little, but she didn't disagree.

_'I wonder how much I should say.'_

"Well Brian's easy to explain. He's big on reputation, using it to open doors or win battles without having to fight, and this job came with a reputation hit. He agreed to it since it was the best option we had, but that doesn't mean he's happy with it."

"That's not it."

Lisa crooked an eyebrow, "I'm pretty sure it is. I get he's a bit too intense about it but it's really not directed at you."

"No, it's..." Taylor turned a frustrated look on Lisa, her hands twisted in the fabric of her hoodie, "He's been weird ever since I started staying with you guys, I mean he was nice at first but he got all weird after I asked if..."

Trailing off was something Lisa had come to expect from her new friend, she had a bag full of social issues to sort through after all. It had usually seemed better to hold off on using her power and let her reveal things in her own time...

Nevertheless cutting off right in the middle of a juicy phrase like that, well how was a girl supposed to help herself?

_asked something awkward, asked something frightening, asked a question she had never asked before, asked if she should go on jobs, asked if she could go on jobs, asked_

"Asked if what?" Rachel said impatiently.

"I'm telling you that's not it." Lisa interjected, eager for the conversation to move away from any direction that might put a freshly triggered girl with so little to lose in the middle of a cape fight. "It's nothing personal Taylor, it's just that all this," She gestured to the meal laid out before them, "-is kind of a sore point for some of us."

"You've probably heard about trigger events right? Somewhere on the net or something?"

"Um, only a bit. That it's how we get powers. And that they, well they-"

"They suck. You know it, I know it, we all know it. So you shouldn't be surprised if a cape has had a pretty rough time of it, unless they're second gen but that's a whole other thing and it's not always true anyway, point is that we've all had shitty lives."

"I still don't see what that has to do with anything."

"Well cooking like this was a nice thing to do Taylor, it's just that for those two...well it probably just reminded them of what they've never had."

The other girl froze at her words, but Lisa couldn't feel bad for saying them. It sucked but, well with what she knew of Alec -_'aka Jean-Paul'_\- especially, Lisa hadn't been surprised by anyone's reactions except for Rachel's.

As if called by that thought, Rachel said, "That's stupid."

Standing up from her empty plate, a plate that Lisa was vaguely aware she had refilled several times, Rachel clicked her tongue at her dogs and picked up her plate before continuing, "Food's food, and this was good food. So thanks. It's not your fault those guys were idiots about it."

With that she picked up a couple more empty dishes, then walked over to the kitchen with her dogs trailing behind her and began washing up. Only then did Lisa really look around at what had been an impressive spread not long ago.

_'Holy shit she ate a lot while we were talking, where did she even put it all? How did she eat it so...fast...'_

The patch of gravy on Angelica's muzzle was enough of a clue that Inspector Clouseau could have figured out that particular mystery.

Blowing out a sigh, Lisa stood up and started gathering up some dishes of her own. She'd just joined Rachel at the sink when Taylor spoke from where she still sat at the table.

"Honestly...I wasn't just trying to be nice. I was, but I also just wanted something to do. It's just that being stuck in here is starting to drive me a bit stir crazy."

"So go outside." Rachel said in between scrubbing plates.

"What? I can't do that!" It was the loudest that she'd been in days. Enough that Lisa looked over to her with a little shock.

Lisa put down the dish towel she was using and gently replied, "Yeah you can, Rachel does it all the time and she's a fugitive too."

_'Did she think she was stuck inside forever?'_

"But, but what if someone recognises me?"

"You run." Rachel said. "And they never notice you anyway."

"A disguise would still be a good idea," Lisa inserted, "-but you've got plenty of options for that." Nodding towards the dogs at Rachel's feet brought the light of comprehension to Taylor's face. Followed closely by the first genuine smile that she'd seen on the girl since they met.

"That's great. So we can head out tomorrow some time?"

_'Uh, we?'_

"Yeah, tomorrow morning's good." Rachel confirmed, before turning to Lisa and bluntly asking, "You coming?"


	8. Vixen: 5

"So, where are you lot off to?"

Most of the time Alec's voice was something Lisa welcomed. He was, after all, the only other team member who had a sense of humour and didn't keep it locked up in a cage somewhere.

It was just that in that particular moment -pulling on her trainers so she could join Rachel and Taylor at the bottom of the loft stairs- Lisa had been under the impression she was alone in the living area. So when the couch spoke in her verbal sparring partners voice, she might have maybe possibly squealed. Just a little.

His laughter dispelled any hope that he hadn't heard, along with any chance Lisa was going to go easy on him. Her lingering bruises had made that jump hurt her body just as much as it had stung her pride.

"Why are you on the couch? It's like eight in the morning."

Alec took his time to reply, starting by rearing up in a luxurious stretch that brought his body above the back of the couch. An action with the side effect of giving her a horribly clear view of his scrawny chest. She threw a hand up to shield her eyes but it was too late, Lisa would forever more know what he looked like with his top off.

While she was busy wishing for eye bleach he deigned to respond, "Some of us are early risers, part of a proper work ethic and all that."

_cadence unusually steady, rote recitation, reciting words from memory, conditioned to recite_

As usual the glimpse into Alec's past made her feel uncomfortably forgiving of his quirks. If he wasn't such a lazy bastard, Lisa might have suspected he gave her power these titbits on purpose. Either way she had no plans to tell him what she knew, even if she wasn't sure how much he cared about his privacy.

_'Probably as much as he can care about anything.'_

"Earth to Lisa, anyone there, are you lost in awe of my brilliance?" Lisa returned her attention to Alec and found him blessedly clothed.

"More like disgust, and what work ethic? You got up early to play your new game."

He didn't blink at being called out, "True, but it's shit. Those developers are lucky they're on the west coast or I'd be proposing a new job for the team."

"As if you could afford to hire all of us. I've seen how you spend money Alec."

"Who says I'd be the one paying?" He got up off the couch and waved a vague hand at the television, "That series is pretty popular you know. There's hoards of angry fanboys and fangirls just flooding the net right now, I say we get them to pay us. Crowdfunded villainy."

Her expression remained doubtful, "Uhuh. You say that like you're not one of those fanboys."

"Whatever." He shrugged, "You didn't answer my question. And what's up with your clothes?"

Lisa grinned and looked herself over. She was wearing sweatpants and a hoodie over a tank top. Casual clothes for anyone jogging in cold weather and unremarkable because of it. However the addition of her costume's gloves and domino mask was anything but unremarkable, and the utility belt hidden under her hoodie was downright illegal.

"I'm going for a walk with two fugitives, can't let anyone catch a pic of innocent little Lisa in that kind of company."

"But the terrible Tats and reprehensible Regent would fit right in?"

"Yeah exactl-" Lisa's brain caught up with what he'd said, "You...want to come with us? On a walk?"

"Yeah yeah, I know, but I promise I'm not being body jacked. I'm just super bored right now."

Before Lisa could muster any kind of counter, he was up and rushing for his room. He called over his shoulder as he entered the corridor, "I'll be with you nerds in just a moment, don't leave without me."

She took a few deep breaths, then nodded her resignation and wandered over to the loft stairs, leaning out over the balcony to see Taylor and Rachel standing with the latter's trio of dogs. They were both ready to go, even if Taylor's loose shirt and pants looked far too thin for the weather and her bare feet seemed even less suitable.

"Oi." she called, waiting until they looked up to continue, "Alec wants to come along. That cool with you two?"

_'Well, your faces are definitely saying no.'_

"Um, I, that'd be, uh, nice?" Was Taylor's eventual reply, Rachel's grunt could have been agreement, disagreement or just impatience. Though given how she refused to just wear a disguise and make the whole walk a hundred percent easier, Lisa didn't care much about what Rachel thought.

_'Now I think about it, Taylor probably would have been fine with some make-up and a wig.'_

With a shrug and a wince, Lisa bent to finish tying her laces, after all it wasn't like she couldn't just recommend that approach for next time.

She was just about finished when Alec stumbled back into the living area. Now wearing a dress shirt and jeans, with a beanie covering his hair. He had a jacket slung over his shoulder and looked unfairly composed for how quickly he'd gotten dressed.

There was a pretty big failure in his dress sense though, "Hey Alec, you remember the part where we need to have our faces covered in some subtle fashion?"

He flipped her the bird and reached up to his beanie, pulling the edge down until it cleared his nose, leaving him with what looked like the top half of a balaclava covering his face.

"Oh great, so we can look like a bunch of car thieves. What part of subtle did you fail to understand?"

"Hello there, welcome to the Docks." He sing-songed back at her, "You must be new here if you think that car thieves are going to get a second glance."

...He had a point.

"I've got a scarf in my jacket pocket as well, but I doubt it'll be needed. Now are we going or what?"

Feeling like she had more reasons to be annoyed at him than she could actually think of, Lisa descended the stairs with Alec close behind her. Predictably his reaction to seeing Taylor's light dress was to point and exclaim, "Hey what about her? You're talking about the wrong clothes and she looks dressed for the middle of summer."

Taylor must have been starting to get some of her confidence back, because she sent a withering look at Alec -not that he was effected- before vanishing. Her clothes held the shape of her body for a moment then drifted down amidst Alec exclaiming and stumbling backwards. His reaction was mirrored by Rachel's dogs, the three of them only calming when she crouched down to...well it involved a lot of stroking and some shushing noises.

Then a tiny little _yip_ revealed what had happened, Taylor squirming out of her empty clothes in the form of the smallest, most adorable puppy that Lisa had ever seen, including on the internet. Though some might have said that it lost some cuteness points by darting over to Alec and nipping his ankle.

Lisa wouldn't have been one of them.

Suppressing a snigger and Alec's exaggerated hopping around, Lisa looking over to their other fugitive and found Rachel's expression had the same confusion as it always did when she looked at Taylor. Only this time Lisa could pick out a definite trace of envy.

Shaking her tiny body, Taylor abruptly expanded into a fearsome looking black wolf, the three real dogs rearing up in confusion. She was almost waist-high on all fours and Lisa could see a problem immediately.

"Uh, Taylor, I think that might be a bad disguise. It's a bit too likely to make small children run away screaming."

Her reply came as a pitiable little whine, then she huffed and flowed into a black Labrador instead, this time merely a normal kind of large instead of looking like she could be ridden into battle.

"So where are we going?"

While Lisa was considering if he was asking seriously or just to be annoying, Rachel answered, "There's a place over towards the Graveyard, near the beach."

"What kind of place?" The irritated look Rachel turned on her seemed unfair.

"A nice place."

Without elaborating further, Rachel gathered up the leads of her three dogs -Lisa elbowed Alec before he could get the obvious joke out- and lead the way out into the cold and the wet.

Unsurprisingly, the street was deserted. The only witnesses to their hideout's door were the rusty old shell of a car across the street and a fuck of a lot of seagulls. An ugly scene that was magnified by the clean snow of a few days ago having transformed into a thick grey slush, eager to seep into shoes and soak through socks.

Even with the cries of the gulls the early winter morning was quiet, still, in that forgotten way that Lisa had only ever found in places like the Docks. Though it was as much an illusion here as in any of the other places Lisa had squatted in, hell she had four friends who lived on the same block as the loft, not that any of them knew that.

Then a gust of wind brought the scent of salt and fish and despite herself she inhaled as much as she could and savoured it.

_'Good morning Brockton Bay.'_

Rachel set the pace, stomping off in her big old combat boots, heedless of the trials of those just wearing trainers. Meanwhile Taylor had Lisa suppressing a smile with the contrast she struck with the three genuine dogs. Where they gloried in the slush -snuffing at it and rolling in it and occasionally even licking it- she stepped as delicately as a ballerina in a minefield.

Reaching down to tap her on the flank, Lisa pretended not to see her flinch and smiled brightly as she said, "How about transforming yourself some thicker soles? Or pads, I guess."

By the time they reached the end of the street, Taylor had found a workable shape and was happily plodding along on feet that, in the brief moments they weren't buried in the snow, reminded Lisa of seeing a rhino at the zoo. Walking in between Rachel's dogs to obscure her lack of collar and leash, she definitely seemed to be enjoying the fresh air.

They carried on the way they'd been going until they were a little over a block from the loft, then they switched direction to face the way they actually wanted to go. Taylor didn't question it, but Lisa suspected she was confused by the ingrained attempt to obscure their hideout's location.

_'Ah well, I'll explain it later.'_

It was strange to be enjoying the outside so much, especially given how run-down everything around them was, yet Lisa found herself unaccountably cheerful as they strolled along. Sure there might be a junkie sleeping in her own filth three feet away, sure the sea winds were biting at her calves and numbing her hands, it just didn't matter compared to the sense of freedom that had come over her.

She knew it wouldn't last, but with her allies around her and a companionable silence between them, Lisa felt like she could take on Coil and win with ease. Even the pain blooming across her chest was easier to ignore.

_endorphin release due to exercise, endorphin release due to proximity to allies, endorphin_

_'Yeah, yeah, who cares about the why. I feel good and I'm gonna damn well savour it.'_

The feeling lightened her feet until she had taken the lead, a casual exertion of her power telling her what route Rachel had planned and letting her take the turns a few steps ahead of her.

She was the first to greet the few people they passed who didn't give them a wide birth, and the first to ignore those who did. When they came across a cluster of kids spray-painting what space was left on the walls, she saw their crude attempts before any of the others. She even got the first look at the ocean -gently lit by the early morning- when they turned onto Lower Bayview.

It was a petty thing to take pleasure in, but she wasn't going to let that stop her.

"We're about a block away." Rachel informed them, the slight note of irritation in her voice giving Lisa some perverse glee.

Spinning to face them all, Lisa asked, "So are you willing to tell us about thi-"

Her reaction to what she saw down the alley was nearly instant. Left hand to hood, tug down to hide mask, right hand sharply gesturing at the others to stop, to turn back, to get the fuck out of there.

After all, the sight of two capes arguing over a thoroughly broken man was not the kind of thing you responded to slowly.

Not even if the man was wearing red and green, and the capes were a pair of heroes. Panacea in her white and red robe, Glory Girl in a crop top and skinny jeans, the former holding a phone and the latter holding a paper bag that stirred a vague familiarity in the back of Lisa's mind.

_'So Victoria Dallon is under the impression that she has the butt to pull off skinny jeans, clearly someone close to her is a lying liar who lies.'_ It was a thought with more than a hint of hysteria to it. Which struck Lisa as entirely justified given that both Dallon sisters had noticed she was there and were breaking off their argument to stare right at her.

They looked just as panicked as she felt.

_afraid of witnesses, afraid of being discovered_

Especially Glory Girl. She was practically vibrating with worry, her eyes wide and her jaw clenched. Foreign emotions washed over Lisa for a moment -_fear, fear, fear, run, run away, she's so strong, too strong, you'll never_\- before pulling back, which seemed a lot like the effects of a cape with an emotion aura briefly losing control of it.

So the gang member -with what her power told her was an assortment of broken bones and internal bruising- must have been her handiwork.

_'Calling in your sister to clean up your mess, how glorious. I bet you're real eager to stand accountable for this. Way to live up to those press releases.'_

Ironic transgressions aside, Lisa painted a timid look on her face, though she angled her head to hide all but her jaw within her hood, and kept subtly gesturing at the others to move back down the street. Then she pitched her voice with just the right mix of deference and fear, "Uh, um, I didn't see anything. I'm just going to, to leave. Please, I just want to leave."

It was the wrong tactic. She knew before she'd even finished the line.

In the heroine's body language Lisa had seen the echo of a thousand petty thuggish tyrants, people eager for recognition of their power. Caught up in that, she'd forgotten something very important.

"It's okay, this man is a gang member. You don't have to be afraid ma'am."

Victoria Dallon didn't see herself as a thug. She was a superhero, so beating a man almost to death was just a mistake. If an innocent girl stumbled across her cleaning up after that mistake, then she couldn't let her leave without reassuring her of that. Otherwise that girl might think she was doing something wrong.

Which was why she was coming closer. Gliding slightly above the ground, Glory Girl was almost to the mouth of the alley. Where she'd be able to see the others.

_'uh, uh, fuck.'_

"Wait. Please don't come any closer!" It was probably too late to change tactics and play the adoring fan, so Lisa doubled down on the fear. Giving the other time to get far enough away that Alec's fucking mask wouldn't get them all thrown in jail.

"I swear you're completely safe, he can't hurt you."

_'It's not him I'm scared of you moron!'_ "Oh, oh yeah, he's down, so I'm just gonna go."

Holy shit she was fast when she wanted to be! Lisa didn't even have a chance to flinch before her fellow blonde closed the gap and clapped a hand on her shoulder.

"Wait! Please, I promise that everything is fine. My sister is fixing him up good as new."

_hiding panic, afraid of being caught, afraid of disappointing others, afraid of being arrested, afraid of_

Okay. Maybe the white hat wasn't quite that oblivious. Meaning she was being held by someone with super strength and a working brain. So it wasn't going to be long before her hood was swept aside and the domino mask was revealed...Lisa really didn't want to end up like the thug on the ground.

_'I could surrender? Buy the others some ti-'_

"Oi! What are you doing to my friend?!"

_'Alec you-!'_

The hand on her shoulder was snatched away like she was on fire, Glory Girl even raised her palms as she backed away. A glance over her shoulder revealed the likely reason. Alec, having re-beanie-fied his mask and wrapped his scarf around his face instead, was pointing his phone at the two of them in the universal pose of 'I'm totally putting this on youtube later'.

_'-...'re not a complete idiot.'_

Now the sisters looked openly panicked. Video evidence was a damning thing and a hero couldn't just break some random guy's phone._ 'Unfortunately for Bastion. Heheh.'_ Lisa held back the urge to gloat and instead opted to get onto the street as quickly as possible, heading straight for where her friends were standing. They just needed to get out of sight and everything would be fine.

"I swear this really isn't what it looks like!" Glory Girl blurted as she zoomed over to where the four of them were gathered. Still holding her shopping bag like nothing was wrong.

"Come on, just leave us alone already. My friend will delete that video, we just want to-"

"Shh!"

_'Did, did Glory Girl just fucking shush me!?'_

The hovering blonde's eyes had narrowed, her panic slowly being replaced by what looked horribly like realisation. Lisa didn't understand, she had kept her eyes in the shadow of her hood, Alec was just wearing a scarf, what could possibly have tipped her...

_'I'm a fucking idiot.'_

"Y-you're that girl with the giant dogs! Hellhound!"

"My name is Bitch!" Yelled Rachel, obliterating any chance of talking their way out.

The confident smile that stamped itself onto Glory Girl's face looked much more at home there than the panic had. She certainly sounded happier when she drawled, "I though villains didn't get that kind of name until they got to prison? Good job reading ahead."

One of those concrete pummelling fists was drawing back when Lisa cut through her building momentum. Nodding towards Alec and his phone she said, "Forgetting something Glory Hole?"

_'Oooh, that's a good one. I need to remember that.'_

"You're extorting me?" She sounded more offended than concerned.

"Blackmail actually, I'm surprised a lawyer's kid doesn't know the difference."

"Oh yeah?" Glory Girl turned the full weight of her attention onto Alec, "So what exactly is stopping me from just snapping your phone right along with your skinny little arms?"

It was Alec's turn to cut through her attitude, "The internet? You think I'm too lazy to set up cloud storage or something? 'Cause I promise I'm not."

_hitch in breathing, raised pulse rate, lying_

Judging by how she settled onto the ground in a defeated slump, Alexandria Junior didn't have the older model's Thinker powers. Lisa remained the only cute blonde lie detector on this particular street.

"See, now we really will delete the video jut as soon as we're out of here. That way none of us go to jail." Despite the urge to gloat having become almost overpowering, Lisa decided not to push her luck. It was definitely time to ru-

"No."

_'Oh crap.'_

Into the air she rose, eyes still downcast.

"Hey. What are you doing? You think he can't hit share before you hit him?"

"I'm not letting you get away."

Her head snapped up to reveal eyes that blazed with anger. The aura broke over them like a wave, setting Lisa shaking with fear. She fought it down and gave words one last try.

"Don't be stupid. You attack us and that video goes viral. It'll ruin your whole life."

"Better than letting you go." With those words she shot forward, fist first, and straight towards Lisa.

There was just enough time for her to hope that she wouldn't lose all of her teeth, then Glory Girl hit home with a massive impact-

_crakthmp_

-that utterly pulverised the concrete a few feet in front of Lisa.

Staring at her across the top of the prone superheroine, Alec's eyes were wide and his hand was stretched out in front of him. Gratitude rushed through her but there was something more important to say than thank you.

"Ruuun!"


	9. Vixen: 6

They scattered.

It wasn't selfishness. Well, it wasn't entirely selfishness. The sad fact of running from a flying brick -assuming you were running because fighting wasn't an option- was that if you didn't have a handy smokescreen like Brian could toss up, then your best option was to give them too many targets to chase and hope to confuse them.

The brief glance she'd gotten did reassure Lisa that Taylor was sticking with Rachel, but she'd been more concerned with picking the most likely door to be unlocked and hurling herself towards it.

Fortunately the neighbourhood they were in gave her plenty of options even without the time to pick a lock. One door in particular leapt out at her as especially worn and-

_door unmaintained, building unmaintained, building weathered, lock non-functional_

-her power confirmed the choice.

With her hood flapping freely behind her, Lisa sprinted for the goal. Looking back would only slow her down. She just had to hope that there wasn't an angry superhero bearing down on her defenceless back.

_kraaash_

"Do you have to repay the city for this kind of damage?" Shouted Alec from somewhere behind her.

...It was a character flaw, but Lisa never had been good at resisting her curiosity just to save herself.

It was just a quick peek over her shoulder, and she was mere feet from the door. Luckily she didn't get a face full of fist for her troubles. However Alec looked to be having much less luck with that.

Where everyone else had sprinted for cover, Alec was barely jogging, all the while looking backwards and making the occasional gesture to divert Glory Girl's flight into the nearest hard surface. He was either covering their escape, or just enjoying the humiliation he was heaping on the self-righteous cow. Or both.

It looked almost one-sided. Alec walking backwards at an unhurried pace, the superheroine -still holding that damn bag- continually failing to charge at him. Lisa knew the truth though, knew the limits on Alec's power for this kind of thing.

Already his free arm was limp and twitching slightly. He disguised it well with his lazy posture, but she saw through him.

At the very same moment, she saw something just as worrying. The forgotten Dallon sister was crouched at the mouth of the alley, no great distance from where she had treated the Bad Boy, and she was holding her phone.

Lisa could recite the response times for most of the city by heart. In the middle of the day, right out in the open like this? They weren't nearly long enough.

She could rush Panacea while Alec held off her sister. Stop her making the call, maybe even take her hostage while they neutralised the greater threat. It was risky but-

_kerkrash_

This time she saw the pieces too late.

Glory Girl skidding through the surface of the road towards one of the few cars that dared to park around here. Alec moving to the side, angling towards an open street door. The car coming between them...but it wasn't like the hero was going to throw a car at someone she didn't know to be a Brute, even she wouldn't go that far.

Except there was another option that he hadn't considered and which Glory Girl, grabbing a crumpled handful of the car's door, clearly had. She tore it off with a growl and began to move.

"Regent get down!" Lisa warned, too late.

Alexandria junior came around the side of the car fast, Alec raised the same lazy hand that he had every other time and then she threw the car door at him.

He still got her, but her meeting with the ground was accompanied by an awful crak as her ballistic frisbee spun right into his outstretched arm. Alec crumpled with a thin scream, curling around his -definitely broken- arm. Glory Girl rose into the air, triumph written on her face as she looked down on her fallen enemy.

Even as she reached beneath her hoodie and yanked her gun from its holster, Lisa was considering targeting Panacea instead. It was probably the smarter play. Distance reduced threat, but if she got off a good first shot then she could play the sharpshooter and try to hold her hostage that way.

She was still considering the better idea while she sighted on the most aggravating part of Glory Girl, braced for the noise and squeezed the trigger. Once. Twice. Thrice.

Panacea dove for cover and a neat little grouping of holes appeared in the side of the paper bag that Glory Girl was clinging to. It swung easily with the impacts, which combined with how she was keeping a hold of it to give Lisa a pretty good idea of what was inside. More importantly, the trio of gunshots had most definitely drawn Glory Girl's attention, though she didn't seem to have noticed the damage to her purchases yet.

She put on the half-sneer of every girl who ever thought her face was too pretty for a proper one. Instead of speaking she just looked down at Lisa with pitying eyes, like she was a considering a mouse that had drawn the attention of an eagle.

_'Bitch please, I was wearing that mask when you still thought boys were icky.'_

Lisa nodded to her freshly ventilated bag, "There aren't many reasons for a rich girl to be shopping this far from prying eyes, and there's only one shop around here that sells any kind of clothes."

The effect her words had on the other cape was beautiful. Her entire body froze and her face became the staging ground for a war between humiliation, fury and disbelief. Honestly Lisa wanted to steal her expression and keep it in her pocket and take it out when she needed a pick me up, or at least to take a picture of it.

_'Time to really piss her off.'_

"Tell me Glory Hole, is it Stanfield's birthday? Or are you just trying to get him to buy you some even bigger tits?"

Fury won the war for control of Glory Girl's face, she opened her mouth but Lisa interrupted her with an ineffective shot to the chest. Starting to back towards the door as she continued.

"I guess you won't mind the bullet holes either way."

Lisa grinned as the other girl finally realised what the ignored gunfire had hit, jerking the bag to eye level and checking inside it.

Judging by the way she dropped it, there was no salvaging the contents.

"Woops," Lisa said with mock innocence, "I was just trying to help. A little less fabric can only impro-"

"Arrgggghhhh!" Unimaginative, as battle cries went, but still terrifying even without the wave of induced terror that almost swept Lisa off her feet.

_'T-time to go.'_

Glory Girl charged.

Lisa spun on her heel and ran for the door, comforting herself that at least Alec had gotten off the street during her distraction. It was barely three steps before she slammed into the door, barely managing to marshal her shaking fingers and twist the handle in time to shoot through it instead of bouncing off.

Mould hung thick in the air, almost choking her on her first breath of it. An old office building. She was in an entrance corridor. Reception desk ahead. Doors to either side of her. Both slightly ajar. Cry of rage getting closer far too fast.

Kicking out at the door to her left, Lisa dove to the right. Even as she bodily knocked the door open she was grabbing the handle to keep it from hitting the wall. Then with the angry scream sounding just a few feet away she swung it back the other way, leaving it just slightly ajar. Absently she reached her free hand into a certain well-secured pouch on her belt and brushed her fingers over the contents. Over her only option if this didn't work.

Then the street door exploded from its frame in a bang that almost made her run despite herself. Not helped by the aura of fear and the sudden presence of an avenging angel out for blood and separated from her by a mere inch of cheap and rotted wood which would splinter if she even looked at it too hard.

_'No. No. That's her aura talking. Calm. Caaalm.'_

It was cliché, but the moments really did stretch into eternity as she huddled against the door. Hoping against hope that her plan would work.

Then the sound of more property damage announced that Glory Girl had taken the left door. She began to yell challenges as she went. Her shouts for Lisa to, "Come out and get what's coming to you!" moving further and further away, until finally Lisa felt comfortable slipping back through the door.

For the final step in her plan Lisa turned her back on the office building altogether, and stepped back out onto the street.

Jogging quietly across the street, she was just considering what a moron her opponent had turned out to be when her roaming gaze fell upon Amelia Dallon.

_'...I forgot you were still out here.'_

The healer shouted for her sister and Lisa found herself running for her life again.

At least she had a decent head start this time.

Another alley looked promising, three doors were visible and-

_slightly worn_

_purposefully damaged_

_extremely worn_

-Lisa went for the second, kicking it open and ducking inside. This time she was in a stairwell, one that went up and down from where she stood-

_apartment building, apartments on upper floors, access to fire escape, access to roof, -'What about down'- access to sewer, locked access to sewer, chained access to_

-She went up, making it to the third floor before a distant impact shook the floor beneath her.

_'No time to go for the roof.'_

Recalling where the next alleyway had been, Lisa dashed for a door. Simultaneously she pulled a couple of delicate metal rods from the side of her gloves. Ducking to the level of the lock, it yielded to her in mere seconds and she stayed low as she opened it, darted through, and closed it again all in the span of a breath.

It was the usual mess of filth and exposed walls, a few places missing floorboards as well. Ignoring all of it she went for the window on the West-most side of the apartment and yanked it open. Outside was a fire escape that she wasted no time clambering onto, and across the alleyway was its mirror image. The gap was just a few feet, no big deal-

_three storey drop, likely fatal, certain to incapacitate, likely due to multiple broken_

She vaulted the railing and leapt before she could think better of it.

There was a heart-stopping moment of weightlessness where the other side looked a thousand miles away, then she crashed into the metal rail and her poor bruised chest screamed at her. Adrenalin let her ignore it, let her haul herself up and over and break the window. A flick of the lock and she could open it and drop to the floor inside.

It was quiet inside this apartment, which probably meant she was safe. She didn't wait around to find out.

The door wasn't even locked and after a little exploring her power told her all about an access corridor that connected this place to three more apartment buildings. She tumbled down the stairs to the right floor, picked the padlock and didn't stop running until she was into the last building the cramped passage touched.

This one was almost classy. If you looked past the damage to everything. In fact it didn't seem so much like an apartment building, more of a-

_hotel_

-that.

Which meant that there was a whole bunch of keys just waiting for someone with super-intuition to find them stashed in a box beneath the floorboards behind the reception desk. Lisa glanced at the floorplan, grinned and grabbed the key labelled dining room. Then she flipped the box end over end, sending keys flying everywhere and rendering it almost impossible to figure out which one she'd taken.

It was on the second floor and in a moment of melancholy as she reached its threshold, Lisa realised that it might have been beautiful once.

Her imagination filled in the absent wallpaper and carpet with something tasteful, it repaired the broken windows and filled the empty space with a table much like the one they hatched their plans over. The result made her wish she could have seen the room before the Docks became what they had.

_'It would have been bright...probably tacky though, not like I'm imagining. Doilies and cat print wallpaper.'_

Shaking off the feeling, she found the door out of the dining room that she was looking for and let a smug smile cross her face.

The explosion of glass that sent her diving for cover in the doorway wiped it right off. Then she began to hear the sirens. And then she got a good look at what had broken the glass.

Glory Girl looked pissed.

Lisa drew her gun.

The hero snorted and took a very threatening step closer. So Lisa did the only thing she could think of and put the smug smile back on her face. Then she made it about a hundred and ten percent smugger, and pointed her gun at the windows.

Confidence did its job and the other girl paused in her advance.

"What the fuck are you smiling about scumbag?

"Oh nothing."_ 'I really hope this works.'_ "Just imagining the news tomorrow."

"Me too. How's 'Under-fuck beaten senseless' for a headline?"

"I was thinking something more like, 'Glory Girl Fails Fan.'"

"Oh, so you're a fan? That's pretty disgusting."

She was about to run out of patience and just attack, so Lisa nodded to the building across the street and launched her bluff. "I'm not your fan. The little girl squatting across the street on the other hand..."

While the confusion was still plain to see, Lisa buried her bluff in information.

"Her name is Sarah. She's been homeless for almost a year and she's had to do some bad things to get by, but she's still a good girl at heart. Of course she doesn't look up to heroes like she used to. Not after they didn't save her Mom from cancer, or stop her Dad from taking his grief out on her afterwards. Until she finally ran away and ended up cold and hungry and alone."

Confusion was turning to sadness, the other girl leant ever so slightly forward as the story took hold of her. Which was Lisa's cue to hit one of the biggest buttons her opponent had.

"All except for you of course."

Her ego.

"You were her favourite hero before, and the only one she still likes. She's even wearing one of your t-shirts right now. It's a bit dirty but then she is too. Can't wash in buildings without utilities."

"Bullshit, how could you know any of that?" Glory Girl rebelled against the lie, physically drawing back from it.

"How did I know about that lingerie you bought? How do I know-"

_white, red, gold, green, emerald green_

"-that your favourite colour is green. The same shade as your boyfriend's eyes. Kind of emeraldy."

_'Thank you gossip magazine covers. That's twice you've saved my life.'_

"I'm a good shot, Vicky. And I know just where to aim. How do you think-"

_wants to attack me, wants to injure me, needs sister to heal me, needs to call sister, can't call sister_

"-I hit your phone?"

Even with the hints from her power that one had been a gamble. Not enough time to be sure.

So when the other blonde sagged in place, Lisa barely kept from laughing in relief.

"I'm aiming right at her heart. By the time you get your sister to her it'll be too late."

Then before Glory Girl could think too much about her story, Lisa began to squeeze the trigger.

"No!"

_'Gotcha...not that I'm feeling great about it.'_

"No, please."

"Please what?"

"Please don't pull the trigger you fucking psycho fuck!"

"Oh what would the papers say if they heard you talking like that? Probably nicer things then they'll say if you don't fly back out that window in the next three seconds."

Glory Girl shot out the window without another word, heading straight for the building where Lisa's imaginary hostage was waiting to be saved. Which bought her maybe ten seconds, twenty tops.

Barely one had passed before she was halfway across the room and pulling open her most secure pouch. Bringing it to her mouth, she bit the little wire hoop and removed the pin with a jerk of her head. Now the time limit was a lot less than ten.

Dropping it behind her, she yanked open her targeted door and found a utility closet.

Without slowing down she hurled herself at the back wall. A prayer on her lips that she hadn't lead her power wrong. That she'd read the floorplan right.

Water damaged plaster crumbled around her and she suddenly had a long dark metal shaft yawning beneath her.

Grabbing for the ladder at the back of it, Lisa set her boots to the outer edges of it, then carefully loosened the grip of her hands. Her stomach rose as she accelerated into the darkness, quickly losing sight of even the ladder.

A flash of light changed that for an instant, then the shaft shook and roared and she almost lost her grip on the ladder. A few pings above her spoke of shrapnel that had made it inside, thankfully staying high above her.

Continuing her descent into the dark, Lisa grinned wide and proud. Recognising the age of the building; realising that it had been converted from something else; noticing the too thick section of wall that went right up the building. None of it had been her power.

Sure she'd used it to confirm, but it was still her own mind that had brought her into the old smuggling tunnels. It wasn't often that she got that kind of satisfaction.

_ambient noise increasing, nearing bottom of shaft_

_'Thank you power.'_ For once it wasn't a sarcastic thought. Lisa tightened her grip and slowed to a stop just a few rungs from the bottom. Then she pulled out a flashlight and set off down the narrow tunnel at a light jog.

With the state of that hotel, the grenade would definitely have collapsed the room. They wouldn't find her quickly...but with more heroes in the area it was still only a matter of time.

The downside of the tunnels was that Lisa had no idea how to even start finding the others. Of course she could just try to leave without them but that was more of a last resort than a starting point. No she needed to find a way back above ground, then figure out the most likely route for each of them to take.

Passing a side tunnel, Lisa glanced down it without bothering to turn her flashlight beam and promptly yelped in terror at the sight of two deep red eyes shining out of the darkness. Spinning clumsily she was still fumbling for her gun when the light illuminated a huge black...dog...

"Taylor!"

A happy bark confirmed her suspicions. Then another bark followed, then three quick barks and a sort of howl that she knew her power could interpret if necessary. For the sake of saving what use she had left of it, Lisa opted to flick off her flashlight and say, "I think I'll understand you better as a human."

One very strange sound later, Taylor's voice came from the darkness where the dog had stood, "A-are you alright?!"

"Woah, calm down." Lisa was caught off guard by the fervour in Taylor's voice, "I'm no worse than I was when I woke up."

The sigh of relief that Taylor replied with started a knot of worry forming in Lisa's gut.

"Why were you so worried?"

"We found Alec and his arm was really badly hurt. He said you lead that lunatic off to save him."

Lisa breathed her own internal sigh of relief. No new injuries.

"Alec said that? I'm not sure I believe that." She said wryly.

"Um, well he mostly swore a lot and tried not to look at his arm. But he said enough for me to put it together. I was scared that, that she might have hurt you like she did that guy." It wasn't just worry in her voice. There was anger in there as well. The same sudden fury that Lisa had seen when she almost destroyed the television a few nights ago.

"Well I'm feeling fine. She couldn't lay a finger on me."

"It was really brave of you." The anger had vanished again and Lisa fumbled for a reply to the honest admiration she heard.

_'What am I supposed to say to that?'_

She eventually settled for, "So you know where the others are then? Because I think meeting up is a good idea."

"Ah, yeah. My dad...he liked to tell me stories about these tunnels. I've even been down here once or twice in the areas closer to where he..."

Stepping forward and slinging an arm around her shoulders might have been a bit uncomfortable with only one of them being dressed, but it seemed like the right thing to do.

With a deep breath Taylor ducked away from her arm. Then there was that noise again and the _clik clik_ of her claws on the cement as she lead the way into the dark.


	10. Vixen: 7

It struck Lisa as inappropriate just how quickly they got back to the others. A complicated journey through a maze of dark underground tunnels should take more than a few minutes, otherwise it was hardly a journey at all. More of an excursion, or a trip.

So it was after a short trip through the dark that they reached their temporary hideout...

Lisa had to admit, it was more impressive than she had expected. Dimly lit by a few stubborn bulbs was what she could only describe as an underground warehouse. One that was both oddly warm and much larger than she would have expected from a space originally carved out by smugglers several centuries ago.

_signs of tools, signs of multiple tools, signs of multiple methods_

Or the original space had been much smaller and later smugglers had added to it.

That would explain the bizarre mix of packaging lying around the place. Everything from some scattered barrels that looked truly ancient, to stacks of rusted steel crates, to a heap of dusty plastic wrap off in one corner.

Sprawled atop a wooden pallet was a pitifully moaning lump that she recognised. However before she could call out to it, someone else spoke right into her ear.

"You found us."

Her heart leapt even higher than she did, but she did at least refrain from screaming. All the surprises lately were improving her reactions.

Whirling on the spot she started working herself up to yell at Rachel for giving her such a fright, only to deflate when she found the dog-loving girl blinking guilelessly back at her. Going by the dogs emerging from a dark alcove behind her, Lisa figured that she must have been standing guard. In there she'd have had a clear view of the entrance tunnel -the only way in or out that Lisa could see- and wouldn't have been easily spotted.

_'Can't really scream at her for being cautious.'_

"Hey Rachel, this place is great, how'd you find it?"

Instead of replying, Rachel grunted and nodded at where Taylor was shrinking and squirming underneath a surprisingly clean pile of cloth. Then the pile inflated and Lisa recognised it as one of her old dressing gowns. Now draped over a rapidly transforming Taylor.

After belting the robe tightly closed, she turned and smiled shyly at both other girls.

"I uh, lead Rachel here. We kinda found Alec along the way. After we split up she was looking for a place to wait for them to stop looking for us and like I told you, my dad liked to tell me about these tunnels. "

Somewhere in her recollection, Taylor had drifted into a memory, talking less to them and more just to hear herself remember. She wandered over to a particular crate that looked a lot less dusty than the others.

"He showed me this place just over two years ago, told me how it was one of the only ones that the cops never found...he loved that story."

Lisa couldn't help but let her power loose just a little, something about how Taylor brushed her hand across the crate.

_uneven dust pattern, regular pattern of disturbance, pattern fits place setting, pattern fits wine glasses, expensive meal_

There was no need for her power to fill in the rest, it was unlikely that Taylor and her Dad had had a meal with wine. The sinking feeling in her gut only made her more certain.

"Your parents, they had an anniversary here. Didn't they."

"...The last one before my mom...before she...and um, and a few other times over the years. They really liked this place."

"Taylor I am so so sorry. We can go find somewhere else-"

"What? No!" Taylor snapped out of her memories and whirled to face them, "No, I wasn't, I didn't mean it like that."

Taking a deep breath she gathered herself and met Lisa's gaze head on.

"Trust me, they'd have approved of us using it to hide from someone like that cow. It was just a nice memory is all."

Relaxing a little, Lisa let herself agree. It was a nice story. She could even see it in her mind's eye. The man who the news channels had been harassing all week -looking younger and happier than he had in those ambush interviews- sitting across the crate from a woman with Taylor's hair. A picnic laid out between them while they exchanged smiles and stories of the smugglers who had traded in the very place they were sitting.

Lisa had never really understood romance, or what was so appealing about it, and she'd certainly never gotten up the guts to share that fact with anyone. Imagining that scene still made her feel something. Loneliness, perhaps? Or maybe a longing for parents who sneaked into smugglers' dens instead of...

She shook that fantasy off with the familiarity of harsh practice. Their neglect was an old wound and her attention would only make it fester.

A certain pitiful lump seemed like a much better target for her attention. So she gave the girls a grin and sauntered over to Alec's pallet of misery.

Once she got closer the good humour died fast. He was ghost pale and shaking and clutching his scarf wrapped arm close to his chest. The covering did little to hide the four clear bends in it, only one of which could be his elbow. In place of the usual lazy grin, he was biting his lip hard enough to draw blood. When he say her his eyes focused on her with an intensity that was almost frightening, clearly desperate for distraction.

"Y-you look like shit Alec. Guess frisbee with Glory Girl is an extreme sport."

He snorted a laugh through clenched teeth, managing to unlock his jaw enough to reply, "Fuck you too you skinny bitch, see if I save your ass again."

_'There's no way that he took that hit and it only damaged his arm. I'm guessing ribs too, maybe something internal...it's incredible that he made it down here in this state.'_

Reaching carefully into one of her belt pouches, Lisa kept his attention away from it as best she could, "As I recall, it was me saving your scrawny ass." She had a good idea what he would say if he saw what was in it but she couldn't just leave him like this.

"What've you got there?" His voice was hard and his gaze had pierced her sleight-of-hand. There was no point lying about it any further so she pulled out the little auto-injector of morphine and waved it cheerily in the air.

"Something to help you with the pain."

"Don't be stupid, how the fuck am I going to get out of here high on that shit?"

"How are you going to get out of here if you can barely move Alec? Just take the morphine-"

"And get left behind. I know how this works Lisa. Keep that needle away from me."

She considered trying to reassure him, then abandoned the idea. Alec was hardly trusting at the best of times. With as much pain as he seemed to be in there wasn't much hope of convincing him they wouldn't leave him to save themselves.

"Maybe I can help?" Taylor spoke up at her side.

Alec shot an incredulous glare at her, "How the fuck are you going to help? Make me a pitbull with a broken leg instead?"

Taylor took several steps back from the force of his response, starting to shy away when Rachel stepped up behind her. Confidence had never been deficient in the heavy-set girl, and she must have lent some to Taylor by standing at her back because she squared her shoulders and strode right up to Alec's makeshift bed.

"I think I can heal you. Like I healed myself, um, well I guess you didn't see that, but I can heal myself and I can probably heal you too. Maybe." Despite trailing into insecurity somewhere along the way, Taylor had a hopeful expression when she finished. Looking to Alec for his verdict.

"Maybe? You can shove maybe up your ass." Alec burst her bubble.

"You got another idea?" Rachel growled.

There was no reply. Lisa might have thought he'd passed out if his eyes weren't still fixed on her hands. Not that he was in any state to stop her...

_'I really hope it doesn't come to that...still...'_

"He has a point Taylor." She found herself saying, "Do you know for sure that you can give people regeneration? I thought you'd only turned people into normal dogs."

"No but I could feel other forms inside them. All the same ones that are inside me."

"That's not the only consideration."

Rachel and Taylor both looked mystified, forcing Lisa to just come out and say it.

"Taylor, have you ever heard of Teacher?"

"...um, yeah, he's the guy who made someone- Hey! You think I'm trying to brainwash you guys?!" Anger was written across her entire body at the perceived accusation.

"No!" Lisa hurried to reassure her, "No, I know you're not like that. It's just that powers like yours...Well sometimes they have other effects. And neither of the people that you've transformed have been seen since."

"So what? You think that I might have fucked with their heads?"

"Accidentally. I'm not saying you meant to. Just that it's possible. Are you sure that it isn't?"

That question dispelled the rage and left her looking unsure.

"Use it on me then." Rachel chose that moment to remind them of her presence.

Lisa sputtered, "Wha- Rachel that's-"

"If it fucks with my head then you'll know. Right?"

"Of course."

"Then she can use it on me first, if it works she can heal Alec. That cool with you Taylor?"

"Rachel you can't just..." Lisa found her words deserting her at the look on Rachel's face. Rather than the anger Lisa had been expecting, she looked determined. Ready for the consequences.

"We need to fix him up if we want a shot at escaping." Rachel jabbed a thumb towards the 'him' in question, "You need to watch the test. Taylor can't test it on herself. That leaves me."

_'That's...surprisingly sound logic.'_

Left without a good reason to disagree, Lisa bit her lip as she ran through a few potential arguments in her head. They'd need to sneak past the white hats if they wanted to get away, which would be almost impossible with Alec in the state he was in. Finally she had to admit to herself that it was the best idea they had.

With a begrudging nod, Lisa looked around and said, "That area's clearest. We should do it over there." Then she lead the way over to a space near one wall, about the size of their loft's living room and at least twice as tall. That it had a convenient stack of crates for her to sit on was just happy coincidence.

By the time she'd hauled her tired body up to her intended perch, Rachel had removed her heavy coat and was standing in just a t-shirt and her skirt. She rubbed at her exposed arms, staring resolutely at Taylor as the younger girl paced rapidly back and forth in front of her. Right when Lisa was about to speak up, she found her courage and grabbed Rachel's elbow.

At first nothing happened, Taylor got a contemplative look on her face and Rachel went very very tense.

_schlorp  
_  
Then Rachel had fur. Fine auburn hair sprouted from her skin wherever Lisa could see it and probably across the rest of her as well, though she was so intent on Taylor that she didn't notice at first. Lisa had to admit that the double take she directed at her hands was pretty funny. Even if the joke was ruined by the way she gasped and began frantically checking her body.

"What happened!? Did it go wrong?!" Rachel almost shrieked.

"No." Taylor had both hands out and was clearly trying to calm her down, "I just figured it was best to try one of my human-ish forms first. Keep from wrecking your clothes."

"But-! I thought you were just gonna make me into a dog!"

_'This is definitely out of character, but it doesn't seem like any kind of control'_

_unusually open reaction, unusual display of emotion, uninhibited display of emotion_

_'Wait...that could explain quite a lot.'_

Taylor had struggled to describe her rampage through the school and Lisa hadn't wanted to push her. It had seemed like a fairly standard trauma induced mental break and she'd left it at that...but what if it wasn't.

If Taylor's power came with heightened emotions then her rampage was easy to understand. Anger at her trigger plus a power that took the brakes off equalled berserk rage. All of her outbursts since coming to stay with them had followed the same pattern, always accompanied by transformation. Which might mean that was the limit of the mental effects.

Pulling her attention back to the warehouse, Lisa found Rachel was almost hyperventilating now.

_'Weird, I'd have expected more anger from her.'_

Instead she was clinging to Taylor's hand and looking up at her without a hint of blame. Which was concerning.

Decided she's learned enough, Lisa yelled "Rachel, it's fine!" Then flinched as, instead of showing any kind of relief, Rachel literally snarled at her. Anger turned to confusion just as quickly.

"It feels really weird Lisa, she didn't mean it but something's happened."

"You just need to calm down. It's not fucking with your head or anything-"_ 'I think.'_ "-it's just making you feel things stronger than normal. Once you get used to it it should be easy to control yourself." _'I hope.'_

Sure enough her breathing began to normalise, finally slowing to a normal pace. Moving with exaggerated caution Rachel brought a hand up to her face and examined her new fur. Peering especially closely at the tough little claws that Lisa hadn't noticed at first.

_calm, no imposed emotions, emotional effect only removes inhibition, emotional effect does not prevent rational thought, emotional effect does not alter thoughts_

Unsure how much she could trust her power on this one, Lisa dropped down from the crate stack and bought herself some time to think.

"Pretty cool. I like that colour on you Rachel." The girl in question didn't respond, either ignoring her or too absorbed to pay attention, Lisa redirected her conversation to Taylor, "Good job Taylor. It does seem like a pretty huge effort for just a little fur and some claws but once she's used to it we can try something bigger."

"Um," Taylor didn't flinch at the two stares suddenly fixed on her, but it seemed like a close thing, "It's not just fur. I gave her everything I could. That form's focused on regeneration but there's improved strength, toughness, and a bunch more stuff."

"...Oh."

_'That's...that could change...everything.'_

Desperately reigning in her rising hopes, Lisa reminded herself that it wouldn't be worth much if it fried her brain. Not to mention that Taylor might be wrong.

"Are you sure? Even if that's what you meant to give her, we still need to check that it worked."

Rachel shrugged and poked at her left arm with the fingers of her right hand. Realisation came a moment too late and she swept her claws along her own skin as Lisa was opening her mouth to tell her not to do it. Blood sprayed across the warehouse floor and Lisa rushed over to her while pulling out her medical supplies.

"What the hell were you thinking!? She gave you strength too, we could have just tested...that..." Her voice trailed off as she wiped away blood to find the wounds and found bare skin. No, there were a few red lines, already fading to pink, then turning the same shade as the rest of Rachel's forearm. It had taken maybe a few seconds to heal.

Feeling a little numb, Lisa returned the bandages to their usual place.

"It's kind of like balancing a budget, or making a character in one of those games with all the numbers. Since that form has really high regeneration it doesn't have much else, just a bunch of small boosts, but the healing is fast and should work for just about anything."

"Awesome, it works. You fucks want to heal me any time today?!" Alec reminded them of why they'd been testing things to start with.

Taylor looked askance to Lisa and she couldn't see a reason not to nod. It wasn't like the mental effects would even do anything to Alec with his fucked up emotions. So, leaving Rachel standing around looking a little stunned, Lisa trailed behind as Taylor ran over to his pallet and placed a gentle hand on his forehead. Her eye's widened and she turned a panicked look towards Lisa.

"He has a fever!" She hissed in the way of someone trying to whisper across an entire room.

"Yeah, he does, so maybe hurry up and fix me." Alec snapped.

Looking down at him, Taylor wrung her hands and said, "I'm not sure if I can fix a fever. Does regeneration work for stuff like that?"

"Why the hell are you asking me? Oi Lisa, does regeneration fix fevers."

Lisa cocked an eyebrow, "Does it really matter?"

"Guess not, but if I turn into a giant fever monster then you guys aren't allowed to kill me."

_'If it was anyone else I'd take that as a sign they were turning delirious.'_

With a firm nod to Taylor, Lisa settled back in a very relaxed and unworried posture. Meaning her hands were in her pockets and thus no one could see her crossing her fingers.

By now the sound of the transformation was becoming familiar, if no less disconcerting for that.

Like with Rachel, a layer of fur was the obvious sign that he had been transformed, though this time Lisa picked up on the smaller differences. Claws at each finger tip, a slight thickening of those limbs she could see, and even some subtle changes to his facial structure. Nothing too shocking really. It was almost anti-climatic.

His voice was a smidge deeper, "Is that it?"

Then his arm started writhing like it was caught in a hurricane. Alec's response surprised absolutely no one.

"Motherfuck piece of cunting shit! Fucking cock-sucking fuuuuck!" Was just the introduction to the veritable seminar on profanity that he began screaming.

However despite the obvious pain and some truly nauseating snapping sounds issuing from his arm, Lisa power kept her calm.

_healing delayed, delay due to pre-existing injury, delay irrelevant to healing efficacy, healing complete in two point six seconds, healing complete in_

So Lisa limited herself to a comforting hand on Taylor's shoulders and using that hand to pull her back from where Alec would be done healing right...about...

The writhing stopped. His mouth took a few moments to catch up, "-bollock-munching whore of a...hey...it doesn't hurt any more."

He sat up slowly and smoothly, pulling himself upright on core strength alone, stretching both arms out as he did so. There wasn't even a sign of which one was injured...except for some bloody tears in his sleeve that made Lisa incredibly glad she hadn't seen his injured arm without the scarf covering it. He flexed both arms, slowly at first then faster and rougher until he was throwing himself from side to side with each movement. Finally he hurled too much weight to one side and overbalanced right off the pallet, rolling to the floor in a jumble of limbs that had both girls rushing forward to help him up.

Only instead of the scowl Lisa was expecting to find on his face, he was wearing the biggest smile she'd ever seen. The kind of honest smile that Alec never wore, that she didn't think he was even capable of, and just to creep her out even more he arched his back and began laughing. Loudly and with a level of glee that would have been infectious if it wasn't so disturbing.

"Okay Alec..." The laughter didn't stop, "I think that's enough..." If anything he laughed harder, "You have a great pretend laugh, please stop."

"He's not pretending." Rachel said, sounding even more confused than Lisa felt.

"What? How would you know that?" Even as she said it, her focus was on Rachel as much as Alec. As confused as she had sounded, it hadn't come with any kind of uncertainty. Lisa knew the other girl wouldn't -couldn't- answer her question, but the answer came to her regardless.

Rachel was looking at Alec the same way she had occasionally looked at Taylor. Like she wasn't sure what she was looking at, and with something else beneath that uncertainty, something Lisa finally recognised.

_'Understanding.' understanding_

So somehow a girl who couldn't tell a smile from a snarl could suddenly read human body language...except that wasn't it at all. Lisa's power bridged the gap enough for it not to matter, but when she was transformed Taylor's body language shifted. It took on elements that had reminded Lisa of a dog, not a complete alteration, but maybe enough that someone with a supernatural understanding of such cues could read them.

Which left the mystery of Alec...and if Rachel was right and he was laughing genuinely, something which should have been impossible given what his father had done to him...

She looked at Alec, really looked at him, and let her power infer what it could without her assumptions holding it back.

_happy, relieved, happy, confused, emotionally numb, happy, emotional damage overridden by removal of emotional inhibition, happy, unable to understand emotional input, confused at emotional input, happy, happy_

"Huh." Alec's laughter was finally dying down and Lisa found herself leaning forward, deeply curious as to what he would do next.

Laughter became a grin that threatened to take his head off and he clambered to his feet.

"Holy fuck, how are you not tripping out over this? It feels amazing. Amazing!" He broke off into a fit of giggling and then practically skipped over to his abandoned pallet to grab his sceptre, muttering cheerfully about needing to grab a new phone from the loft. The way he began twirling it through his fingers had Lisa imagining the consequences of a fumble with the electrified end, but asking him to stop ran the risk that he'd start laughing again.

It was kind of creepy.

"So...I guess I'm up next." Lisa mumbled as she tugged off her gloves. Telling herself that Alec's reaction was due to his unique issues didn't make it any more appealing...but she couldn't ignore the list of benefits Taylor had recited. Especially with them trapped like this.

Some advantages were worth risks. Even the risk of mental alterations that might fuck up the only good thing about her.

Taylor came close enough to hug her, then reached up to cup her cheek. Lisa caught her hand an inch away from making contact.

"Um..." _'I don't know if I can do this.'_

"Lisa? Are you okay?"

She wasn't. Just thinking of something messing with her mind made her sick with horror. However the others had done it and if she didn't do the same then she'd only be making herself into a burden. So Lisa reached for her pride and let in give her the strength she needed.

"I'm fine, I was just wondering if you had anything sleeker available? I don't think a normal dog would look that great on me."

Her flimsy excuse for hesitating had more effect than she'd intended. Taylor pulled back her hand and scrunched her face in thought. After almost a minute of what Lisa assumed to be some kind of internal search, Taylor nodded and looked up at her with a smile that was downright mischievous.

"I do have more than just dogs, and I think I found one you'll like."

Lisa forced herself to return the smile and clasp Taylor's hand in both of her own.

Then she felt it. Like every cell in her body was stretching a kink out of its back and shrinking at the same time. By the time she became aware of the layer of warmth covering her body Taylor had already released her hand and stepped back.

There was a mirror in her belt, somehow despite her claws it was even easier to pull it out then normal. Apprehension flooded her as she brought it up to her face, then she turned it around and saw...a fox.

Overall her facial structure had barely changed. She didn't have an animal head or anything, but the fur and the slight shifts in her nose and her cheeks, it all screamed fox. The tail she realised was swaying gently behind her, that just confirmed it.

"I hope you like it, you've always kind of reminded me of a fox so..."

Lisa answered with a frantic sequence of nods. She loved it! She had a big bushy fox tail, and it was beautiful. She was beautiful. If only her mother could see her now then she'd have no choice but to admit it.

Thinking of her mother reminded her of all the horrible things that the woman used to tell her. Of being told to diet and to exercise and to eat more and eat less. She was sniffing and rubbing her eyes by the time her thoughts drifted back to when her mother had gone through her closet and thrown all her favourite clothes on the floor and told her that she was too old for frills and pastel colours and they would need to get her a whole new wardrobe but she had wanted to keep some of her favourites and her mom had...had...

Lisa held her cheek and tried not to sob, she knew that she had to fight it. That she could get control of herself like the others had but it was so hard and thinking of her mother just made her think of her father and then that made her think of Rex and then she really wanted to cry and-

Warmth. It scattered her memories and brought her back to the underground warehouse. To where she was crouching on the floor and someone had thrown thick strong arms around her. Someone that smelt of dogs and sweat and comfort.

Simply having those arms around her made her feel stronger. Strong enough to stand up to the memories. She was stronger than them. She was bigger than them. She was tougher than them. She was...actually getting bigger.

It hit her like a bucket of ice water with a complementary bolt of pain down her spine.

Rachel was hugging her and -only marginally more shocking- Rachel was using her power on her. Already she could feel her bones creaking and her muscles straining at her skin. She was standing up and several steps away from Rachel before another thought could cross her mind.

The other girl had gone from roughly the same height as her to nearly a foot shorter, but it was her eyes that drew Lisa's attention.

They were so kind. So gentle. Filled with understanding. With acceptance.

She hated them.

One long stride closed the distance. "Why the fuck did you use your power on me dumbass!" Lisa shouted right in her face.

Rachel didn't even flinch. Just reached out, as if she was going to give her a hug.

Lisa slapped her hands away. Probably hard enough to do some damage, not that she cared. In fact she wanted to hurt Rachel. Anything to break that mask and get at the anger that had to be beneath the gentle lie.

_not angry_

No one could look at her like that. No one could see what she was really like and...

_concerned_

-and...

_understands_

-and not hate her. Not look down on her. Not treat her like the selfish little fool that-

Arms closed around her again and Lisa almost, almost, let the tears out. Instead she took the deepest breath that she could, and got herself back under control.

Meditation wasn't something she'd ever been great at, but the slow rhythm of a half-remembered mantra helped her to slow her heart beat. By the time she'd done that her breathing was back to normal, which distracted her long enough for the turmoil in her heart to calm down.

This time she withdrew from Rachel's arms slowly. Careful even as she shrunk back down, Rachel withdrawing the boost that she had given -Lisa guessed- without even realising she was doing it.

Cautiously, Lisa reached for an emotional memory to test her control, only for it to feel...more, but not the overpowering assault of a few minutes ago. Emotions still came faster, more freely and stronger. Just not as much stronger.

_'Maybe it's only the first time there's a huge effect?'_

Looking around, Rachel supported that theory, but Alec was still vibrating with glee over in the corner. He was throwing himself into the pile of plastic wrap, then rolling away and doing it again, over and over and over...but then Alec was probably a special case.

Yeah, it made sense for the first time to be extra potent. Presumably that had been why Taylor rampaged at Winslow but had only had minor outbursts since. Well, something about that theory still didn't sit right with her but even she had to call it a day sometimes. She could figure out the rest later.

"So guys, who's up for getting out of here?"

Rachel looked at her approvingly, then bit her lip in an almost comical 'thinking face'. Lisa was just about to ask her what had occurred to her when she grit her teeth and looked very intently at her navel.

Then she grew a foot taller and sprouted a row of stubby little horns across her brow.

"Wait! No! That wasn't my plan at all!"

* * *

After she had gotten everyone calmed down and listening to her plan instead of jumping to conclusions about what it involved, getting out of the PRT perimeter had turned out to be hilariously easy.

Attacking head on had appealed to Lisa in a way it normally didn't. Which meant she was even less willing to do things that way than she normally was. They had had no idea how many heroes were waiting for them on the streets, nor what the PRT had brought in to aid them. For all they knew Alexandria herself might have dropped in for some tea and a quick beatdown. So, as tempting as it had been to see what happened if Rachel gave one of them a serious boost, they'd opted for a slightly sneakier approach.

Which meant turning into a pack of stray dogs.

It had involved a fair bit of embarrassment. Starting with the discussion over how to deal with clothing. Alec had advocated for just leaving it where it was, Rachel had argued that she liked her coat and Lisa had reminded them both that she had her gear with her and there was no way in hell she was leaving without it. They'd just started talking about tying their clothes to one another when Lisa remembered the roll of emergency loot bags she had tucked into one of her pouches. Though the other three had persisted in calling them gym bags despite her insistence.

Which had lead to the real embarrassing part, wherein they'd rigged layers of plastic packing wrap into a privacy curtain and taken turns to strip down, pack their clothes into one of the bags and reach a hand through for Taylor to grasp. Then there'd been about ten minutes of awkwardly stumbling around trying to get used to having four legs and no hands before finally they had been ready.

Rachel had had the easiest time of it. Not because she'd been especially good at walking on four legs, but because as soon as she'd been transformed her dogs had dashed over to her and stuck so close to her side that she hadn't been able to fall over.

Once they could walk straight, each of them took a bag in their mouth and Rachel barked at her dogs until they gave her some space. Then they'd all barked at Alec -which had felt strangely satisfying- until he stopped chasing his new tail and calmed down. Then they'd headed off into the tunnels.

Unlike on the way there, when she'd had only a flashlight and the sound of Taylor's claws to guide her, this time Lisa was able to see the tunnel they were walking through. Her vision hadn't lost any colour with the transformation, but her new night vision attested that her eyes had been changed in some way. Showing her concrete and pipes and an incredible quantity of cobwebs.

Being able to see the tunnel hadn't made the route any less confusing and Lisa had passed the time by wondering how long it had taken Taylor to memorise the directions to this little hideaway. Not that she was surprised. If her parents had shown her a secret underground lair then Lisa would probably have refused to leave it for a month, let alone memorising the way to get to it.

Honestly Lisa still really wanted an underground base. Unfortunately after a few dozen twists and turns she'd been forced to abandon any ideas of claiming this one for her own. The PRT agent stomping through the tunnels made sure of that.

They'd heard the boots long before they got close enough to peek at them through a grate set low in one wall. Their were two of them, well-armed and wearing helmets Lisa knew for a fact contained night vision tech, stomping down a parallel tunnel. Except they hadn't been stomping at all. When she got a look at them Lisa realised that it wasn't that their footsteps were loud, it was that her hearing was really really good.

Which had given her all sorts of ideas.

Avoiding arrest had struck her as more important, so she put them to the back of her mind and got back to following Taylor through the tunnels. Though even with the hostile boots echoing around them Lisa hadn't been worried, not after they ghosted past the first few.

They were almost to the end of the tunnels when they heard it, a low din of sirens and voices. It was coming from the direction of the exit.

The others had pulled back, a scent her power identified as fear creeping into the air. Lisa hadn't hesitated at all. Instead she'd woofed for their attention and once she had it, she lead the way back through the last few turns. There she found a vent covered by a rusted old grille, nothing unusual down here, and the scent of salt air.

With a very vulpine grin, she flicked her bushy tail towards the grille and waited for them to see it.

The very tip of her tail was fluttering ever so slightly in a breeze.

The metal gave way in a single swipe of Taylor's claws, then they were scrambling up it as fast as they could. A long climb in a cramped, dark tube before they abruptly piled into one another in a mess of legs and claws and screeching metal and light.

They tumbled out into the fresh air. Fragments of the metal grille falling together with them.

Sure it hurt when they hit the sidewalk, but Lisa was more concerned with the flood of fresh air all around them. She hadn't even noticed how stale the air was down in the tunnels until she got a wonderful fox-sized lungful of sweet sweet salty air. Most important of all, the distinctive sounds of a PRT perimeter were almost inaudible. They were free and clear.

The others were just as happy with their surroundings as she was, Alec was literally bouncing up and down.

Rachel loosed a happy woof, then when she had their attention, she dashed off down the street.

Lisa followed her just for the joy of it. Running had never appealed to her before, but something about four legs made all the difference. Maybe it was being so close to the ground. Feeling its texture with every step. Sometimes gross and slushy, sometimes firm and satisfying beneath her paws.

Streets passed in a blur, so maybe it was the speed that made it so much fun. Then again the scream as they rushed by a girl on the sidewalk was pretty satisfying too.

_'Wasn't that Dana? I'll need to apologise to her later.'_

In fact it was so much fun that Lisa didn't realise they weren't heading towards the loft until they were running along the dockside.

Before she could say -bark- anything, Rachel lead them inland again. Warehouses loomed on every side, one of them with a gaping hole in the front wall that Lisa was surprised they didn't head for. Instead Rachel lead them on until they reached a narrow alleyway strewn with the debris of several years of neglect.

While they picked their way towards what looked like a dead end, Lisa began to suspect that this might be where Rachel had intended to lead them when they first set out. Then Rachel set her weight against a dumpster and heaved it out of the way to reveal a ragged hole in the wall, vanishing through it with her dogs close behind her.

The three of them left behind traded glances, then followed her through into...well...it wasn't what Lisa was expecting.

What had she expected? Some kind of abandoned storage room, maybe an old office.

Definitely not a hidden garden.

If she had to guess, Lisa would say that it was a forgotten space. The kind of thing that always happened when too many people owned windowless buildings too close together. All of them looked at their walls and assumed that their property ended exactly where the walls did, that whatever was on the other side must be their neighbours'. So whatever was actually between those walls got left to fend for itself.

Of course that was usually a few square feet of dust and cobwebs, not a space at least the size of their loft and blanketed in greenery. Oh, and then there was the tree. A huge damn tree standing over them, its canopy reaching out to the walls on every side.

Stepping onto soft grass, Lisa attempted a fox laugh when she noticed that it even smelt nice in this place. The laugh worked surprisingly well, kind of a barking chuckle.

Rachel was lying against the trunk of the-

_oak_

-oak tree. She looked peaceful. Mostly because she was taking a nap.

Grinning a fox grin at the way Alec started dashing around the grass, exploring bushes and overgrown crates, Lisa decided to join her...friend.

Not long after she lay down for a nap of her own, Taylor joined them.

* * *

The breeze on her skin woke Lisa up.

Thankfully she got her hands over her mouth before her scream could wake everyone else.

Her clothes bag was close enough for her to reach it, then it was just a matter of getting dressed as quickly as humanly possible and keeping her gaze firmly on the canopy above them. Once she was done Lisa nudged Rachel with her foot until the butch girl stirred, then she threw the relevant bag at her and waited for her to get dressed.

Taylor was, unlike the rest of them, still transformed. Judging by the angle of the shadows it wasn't even noon, which was enough to get a rough guess of how long the transformations had lasted. Somewhere between one and two hours. Useful to know.

_'...okay, can't just pretend he's not here.'_

Since searching for Alec would risk the nightmarish scenario of seeing Alec naked, Lisa opted to yell, "Alec! Wake up and get some clothes on."

"Why?" Said a familiar voice that was far too close for comfort.

She very carefully did not turn around.

"Because if I see you without clothes on then I might just shoot you."

"Well then I'll just drape this here," There was a rustle of cloth over flesh, "And the dork can turn me back without anyone burning out their innocent little retinas."

"You want to transform again?" Lisa was beyond incredulous. How could he have forgotten what just happened. They run across town and gone to sleep in a secret garden. That was impressive even by drunken story standards.

"You want to try the mask plan again?"

She had to admit he had a point. Even so when they got Taylor awake, Lisa was very clear that she would once again be the last of them to transform. If she saw even a hint that things were about to degrade into another romp through the streets then she was pulling the plug.

As such it was a relief when all three transformations brought nothing close to what they had the first time. Rachel and Alec both kept their cool, and Lisa herself felt...well it was hard to describe the difference. She was certain the effect was still present. It just wasn't keeping her from thinking clearly any more.

Looking around confirmed it. Rachel was standing in the same vaguely threatening posture she always did, simply converted into a four limbed version. Meanwhile Alec was especially subdued. Lisa wondered if that meant the disinhibition had only worked on him the first time, or he just didn't feel as happy this time around.

At least Rachel didn't glare at her when she took the lead. So one good thing had come of this whole disaster. Possibly.

They moved cautiously this time. No mad dashes through the streets. Wherever possible they stayed in the shadows. Where they had to come out in the open it was never for longer than absolutely necessary. Always from cover to cover.

This way it took them the best part of an hour to get back to the loft, by which time it was past noon and Lisa was wishing she'd just rolled over and gone back to sleep that morning. She could barely believe that they still had so much of the day left to go.

They nudged the street door open and scurried inside before pushing it shut again. Lisa huffed a sigh out of her long furry nose and wandered if she could get away with calling it a night mid-afternoon. When the others clambered rapidly up the loft stairs, she opted to drag herself upwards one step at a time. Until finally she could toss her bag into the loft with a flick of her head and heave herself up that last step to find the one thing she had forgotten staring down at her.

Brian was holding a cup of tea in one hand and his phone in the other. If she'd looked at either object she'd have noticed immediately that his hands were white-knuckled and shaking slightly, but his face demanded all of her focus.

In much the same way that a ticking bomb tended to.

"So, since I'm guessing you're Lisa, would you mind telling me what the hell is going on?"

_'I probably should have left him a note.'_


	11. First Letter

_Dear Taylor,_

_I'm not sure how to begin. You'd know, but then your mom was a professor with this stuff. Me, I've never been very good at it. Mr Baird is always getting on my case for how I do on his essays..._

_I guess the best place to start is this. I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry. Even if you were going to stab me, it was probably my fault you were driven so far._

_There. I said it. Wrote it. Same thing._

_You wouldn't believe what a relief it is to tell someone the truth. It feels like my whole life has become a lie, a lie so big that I don't even know if I could stop it any more. Not that I'm going to...that looks worse on paper than it sounded in my head. Let me start from the beginning, okay Taylor?_

_Sophia saved my life. More than that actually, she saved me from something worse than dying. An it made me realise how weak I was. What a stupid little girl I was being, and then you came up the road and it was like I was staring at everything I hated about myself and I hated you for it._

_Ever since then I've been trying to grow up. To be strong. I know that this would just make you hate me more, I understand that, but I have to tell you so you get why I, I've gotten all tangled up. Let me start over._

_I thought hurting you made me strong. It made me feel stronger._

_Then you did...what you did to me and...please don't think that I blame you for it, I don't. Just...it was really horrible Taylor. It was like those stories you here hear about bad trips. I was shrinking and I didn't know what was happening and that made me scared and it was like as soon as I got scared the fear just exploded and it was horrible. My heart was pounding so fast I thought it would explode and I couldn't calm down and they'd tied me down so I couldn't hurt myself and it just went on and on and on._

_Turns out that I was only a little dog for about an hour and a half. It felt like forever._

_After that I know...I'm not strong, not strong at all. They told me that you did the same to one of their agents and she freaked out too, but I bet they didn't have to tie her down. I bet she didn't have nightmares about it. So I know that I'm weak...and that means it was all for nothing._

_There was no point in hurting you Taylor. I'm no better off now then I was when we were still friends. I shouldn't have done it._

_I've been thinking about what to do. Thinking a lot. I tried calling your dad, I don't even know what I was going to say to him, but as soon as he heard my voice he told me I was a liar and hung up. You remember how he used to give us both piggybacks round your garden? He'd finish by running inside and throwing us onto the couch and we'd both be giggling so hard that, fuck. I'm crying now. It's ruining the paper, my make-up too. I'm gonna grab a tissue real quick._

_I'm back. Stupid thing is that I knew I couldn't tell him the truth anyway. That's the thing Taylor. I know that you need me to tell the truth, I get that. If I did then you'd still be in trouble but maybe you could work it off like Sophia is...but you see, if I tell the truth then everyone who lied is going to get in trouble. A hell of a lot of trouble._

_It's not me I'm doing this for. I know you don't have any reason to, but please please believe me. It's not any of those dumbasses I hang out with at school either._

_Sophia's the one I have to protect._

_I swear I can almost hear you yelling at me for it. I know you won't understand but Taylor, you don't know Sophia like I do. Maybe to you she's just the bitch who made me hurt you, but that's not the Sophia I know. The Sophia I know is a hero._

_She saved me, she even tried to help me with my fucked up head afterwards. Then she became my friend. My best friend._

_You know that she always forgets to eat in the morning? That she can go on for hours about this dumb kiddy cartoon that she pretends she doesn't like? That she likes to call me up after a shitty day with the other Wards and bitch about how they treat her until she feels better? That she needs me to read over her homework 'cause she's always forgetting words and losing track of where she was in a sentence and..._

_She's my friend Taylor. I already stabbed one friend in the back, and I don't think that I'm going to become a better person by doing it again._

_So anyway, that's why I'm lying to everyone. It's not as hard as it could have been, I mean you really made it look bad at school. I think you tore apart most of the third floor. The heroes, Assault is a total hottie by the way, assumed from the start that you were some psycho. All I had to do was make sure no one said otherwise and that was that. Well I blamed a few things on the Empire kids as well. That's probably a good deed though, those fucks deserve whatever they get._

_The rumour mill took it from there. Like I said before, I don't think I could change the story even if I wanted to. It's not like anyone was willing to speak up for you before you tore through the school, now I think Sophia's the only one who isn't terrified of you._

_Am I scared of you? I don't know. It sounds stupid but I really don't. I get that you might attack me, that's why I had Velocity hanging around my house for a week, and why I still have this little camera thingy up on my roof. I'm just not sure if the idea of you attacking scares me. It might make me feel better if you hit me some more._

_That was a nice punch though. You gave me a hell of a bruise._

_I don't think there's much left to say. I guess I hope that you're doing well. I know it's cold outside right now, but you have fur right? You should be warm enough. You're smart enough to find food._

_Maybe you've left town. Run off to Boston, or somewhere much further away. Wherever you are Taylor, I want you to know that I'm going to try and be a better person._

_Sophia is where I'm going to start. She's enjoying being a Ward a lot more now that the others can see how awesome she is. When school starts back up I'm going to try and use that, make her act like a hero at school as well. No more picking on anyone._

_And I've been looking online for charity stuff. Volunteering, you know, soup kitchens, shelters, dog pounds, that kind of thing. I even found a charity calendar that I'm gonna try and pose for. If I can't help you then I can at least help other people._

_I promise that I'm going to help other people Taylor._

_So...I guess that's all I wanted to say. I'm sorry for what I did. I'm sorry for choosing Sophia over you. I'm sorry I couldn't be the friend you deserved._

_I know that you're strong enough to get through this anyway. You'll find a way to survive. You'll do something great, I just know it._

_Sincerely,_

_Emma_

* * *

Straightening in her desk chair, Emma Barnes shook out her writing hand and bit back a sigh.

Letters made you feel better, even if you didn't send them. That's what the PRT's trauma councillor had said. 'Write a letter to Taylor, telling her how you feel about her attacking you.'

It had sounded dumb, but now that she'd written out her thoughts Emma could see the idea behind it.

Everything was on the page now. Put in its place. Trapped in ink and paper. She could think past it a little easier now. Think of her next step.

Even if it didn't do anything about the guilty pit in her stomach, it had helped her be sure that she was doing the right thing. Or maybe just the least bad thing. Either way there was one more thing left to do.

Her letter was just a few sheets of large handwriting. When she picked it up it felt like lead.

In her bedside table there was a lighter from when she'd briefly toyed with smoking. The only thing she kept when she threw out the cigarettes and the weed. Now she brought it and the letter with her as she left her room.

There was no one else home. Her sister had come home for a few awkward days, but she was back to college now. Her mom and dad were both out for the day. Whatever the PRT were using to keep watch on her house, it didn't involve anything inside the house. Her dad had been very clear about that. So she was alone.

No one to ask why she was going to the bathroom with paper and a lighter. No one to see her rip up her letter and pile it carefully in the sink. No one to see her close the door and pop the battery out of the smoke alarm.

She lit the paper and stood alone, watching it burn. It made her think of a funeral pyre. The last rites of her old friendship. The last bridge being burned.

_'I could still put it out. Take it to the heroes. Throw Sophia under the bus. Maybe, I could save Taylor...'_

...

Once the letter was ash, she turned on the water and washed it down the drain.


	12. Bitch: 1

Rachel was tense.

She was always tense just before a job. The stench lingering in the air was not helping.

They were sitting on a gravel-covered roof across the street from their target, a huge old factory sitting on the edge of the Trainyard. A sprawling mess of buildings bracketed by two fenced-in stretches of empty ground. Rachel didn't know what exactly the place had made before it was abandoned, but whatever it was had given the place a reek that hadn't faded with time. She'd been in slums that hadn't smelt as bad.

Brutus and Judas were dealing with it well enough, but the way Angelica kept snuffing at the air was worrying her. Lisa had said there was nothing toxic but she might just be allergic to something.

Not much point bringing it up to the others though. None of them would care.

Except for the fourth dog on the rooftop. Taylor was looking at Angelica with a worried lean to her head. Then again the others weren't likely to listen to Taylor either.

Rachel decided that she'd just have to keep a close eye on Angelica, so with a final belly rub she started looking around at her...friends? She'd never really had human friends before. Not when she was young. Not when she was alone. Even once she'd joined the team they'd never been more than convenient allies. She'd never understood them, never really trusted them.

Taylor's power had changed everything.

Seeing her had been...it had been like looking at a dog, sometimes. Sometimes she was just as weird as everyone else. Then she'd suddenly start making sense. Rachel found herself looking at another human and understanding them for the first time she could remember. Then she'd heard what Taylor's power could really do.

It was an old dream. She was somewhere warm, somewhere safe. Someone was holding her and a gentle voice was whispering to her about love and family and then she turned to face it and it was beautiful. A huge beautiful wolf, overflowing with love for her, and as soon as she saw it she knew that she was a wolf too. She was what she was meant to be. Then she woke up.

Reality hadn't been like the dream. It had been better.

It wasn't some mysterious wolf running beside her when she'd been transformed, it was her friends, because they really were her friends. Looking at them she had just known. Lisa and Alec and Taylor had all made sense, she could see Alec's unrestrained happiness, Lisa's nagging worry, Taylor's cautious hope. She could see the bonds between them all.

Then it was over. She woke from the dream and everything was back to the same confusing impossible masks.

Only now she knew what was beneath those masks.

Alec was lounging against the roof access door. He seemed as lazy as ever, but Rachel knew that there was passion and friendliness hidden inside him.

Lisa was looking at their blueprints again, wearing the same infuriating 'smile' she always did. The one that screamed aggression and mockery. Rachel forced down her usual reaction with the memory of the desperate loneliness that she had seen. The hatred that the blonde girl aimed squarely at herself.

Brian was lying at the edge of the roof, watching the factory though heavy binoculars. He... She didn't know what was inside him. After Lisa explained things and he stopped shouting at them, he had told Lisa to lock in his room once Taylor transformed him into a little dog. Watching from the couch, she'd gotten a glimpse of fury and exhaustion before he was tossed into his room. By the time he came out he'd been back to the familiar human face that told her nothing at all.

Then there was Taylor. Curled up in the middle of the roof she occasionally lifted her head and shot a glance over at Brian, otherwise she remained huddled in on herself. Scared, unsure, impatient. She looked like she wanted to prove herself.

It made her feel a little guilty, but even though Taylor was obviously unhappy Rachel was grateful to have someone there that she could understand. The others were strangely opposed to using Taylor's power so she didn't know when she'd next have a chance to...well she wasn't sure what she wanted to do. Talk to them? Go for another run?

She could see what Brian meant though. This wasn't going to be an easy one, they couldn't afford mistakes. Taylor's power was awesome, but it might make them do something stupid. She just thought that their leader could have said all that without making Taylor look so dejected.

"I see them." Brian whispered, everyone else on the roof coming awake at those words.

He raised one of his hands in a fist behind his back, then started signalling. Once, then again, his hand opened fully, then a third time with all but one finger extended. Fourteen soldiers escorting the delivery. Confirmation that this was the right place and that there was nothing here they couldn't handle.

Rachel fought the urge to jump down with her dogs and start smashing the bunch of weaklings out of the way. It would be so much faster to go through the front and fourteen Empire footsoldiers was nothing...but the plan was the plan, and she wasn't going to piss everyone off by breaking from it.

Brian signalled that the delivery was inside and the team picked themselves up off the roof. It was time to get started.

As they gathered their gear, Rachel couldn't help but groan internally. She hated the sneaky jobs. If they weren't hoping to haul off as much of the Empire's stash as possible then the plan wouldn't even call for her to use her power. Just keep her dogs quiet and follow the others.

They climbed down the fire escape then headed directly away from the factory. Instead of just crossing the street they had to circle around while keeping a building between them and the factory for as long as possible. Eventually they crept down an alley and came right up to the fence bordering the factory grounds.

On the other side was about two dozen yards of cracked asphalt, still bearing the faintest traces of painted lines. The fence itself was no obstacle, it was so tattered that they didn't even have to cut a hole in it, but the open ground was a problem. Rachel couldn't see any lights in the factory windows but there was certain to be look-outs posted. Watching the weathered parking lot for anyone trying to sneak up on them. Though it was only dimly lit by distant streetlights, they'd still be spotted.

Which was where Brian became Grue. He rolled his shoulders and darkness began seeping out of him, forming a thick cloud around him, obscuring the lines of his body and making him look even bigger than he did without it. Then his hands snapped out in a flurry of jabs and streetlights began winking out all around their chosen approach. Thick patches of darkness blotted out the lights and plunged their path into true night.

Pulling her handful of leashes taut, Rachel ducked through a hole in the fence and became Bitch. Bitch was strong. Bitch was tough. Bitch didn't take shit from anyone and she would fuck up anyone who tried to give it to her. If anything went wrong then it would be down to Bitch to clear them a path out of it.

With a click of her tongue she had her dogs running alongside her, following the vague form of Regent in front of her. She remembered that he would be following Tattletale, while Grue brought up the rear. Runt was up front with Tattletale, adding her eyes to their Thinker's power.

Concrete loomed in front of her and Regent's outline vanished in the shadow of the wall. Bitch didn't slow until she was just a few steps away, slamming to a halt in the midst of her team. Grue joined them a few heartbeats later.

They navigated by touch, pressing themselves closely against the wall. It was a complicated command to give her dogs, but she didn't spend so much time training them for nothing. When Grue let the lights come back on they were all safely out of sight unless someone poked their head out a window and looked straight down.

Rough voices drifted down to them, "The lights are back on!"

"Keep it down," Hissed someone else, "it was just another brown out. The grid's shit around here."

A third voice ended the discussion, "They've been going on since yesterday, now shut the fuck up before I cave your fucking face in."

Bitch grinned savagely. Those idiots had fallen for it. Tattletale and Regent had spent most of the previous day wandering around this area, fucking with any junction boxes they could find until they killed the power. All to set up their entrance.

They edged around to a door that had been boarded and chained until it looked more secure than the wall did. Regent went to work on the lock while Bitch helped Grue lever off the boards as quietly as they could. She relished the work, mostly since it would be the last thing she got to do until they reached the stash deep within this place.

Finally they got enough crap off the door for it to drift open, revealing a cramped corridor stretching off into the building. The others went straight in but Bitch hung back to take one last breath of the foul air outside. Then she stepped inside and swung the doors closed behind her, surprised to find that the inside smelt better. Much better. Maybe the Nazis cleaned up?

"Psst!" Tattletale called for her attention.

Turning to face her teammates with a low huff, Rachel resigned herself to following them through the maze of abandoned industry.

At least things would get more interesting once they reached the stash.

Bitch really really hoped things would get more interesting once they reached the stash.


	13. Bitch: 2

Every fucking door in the building was locked. Every lock meant Regent had to pick it. Regent having to pick it meant spreading out to keep watch. Not attacking, not defending, not even hiding; Just standing out in the open and waiting for the skinhead brigade to find them.

All with the stupid _clink clink clink_ of those damn lockpicks ringing in her ears.

Bitch blew a few errant hairs out of her face and continued glaring down her assigned dusty dimly-lit corridor. One of her hands kept a tight grip on her dogs' leashes, but the other was free to clench and unclench as she wished for something to fucking happen. Something to break the tension. Anything to break the tension.

"Where are they?" Bitch muttered.

Tattletale answered under her breath from where she was staring down another hallway, "Probably all out towards the walls. They'll be worried about an attack from the outside, not people sneaking around inside."

Experience had taught Bitch not to question Tattletale. Even if she was wrong, she'd never admit it. Then again, that had been before...

For the first time Bitch stopped to wonder if there was a reason Tattletale acted like she did.

Memories of Lisa shaking and clinging to her dragged Bitch into uncomfortable thoughts. Had she been wrong before? Lisa so clearly needed help, had it been her fault for not reaching out-?

Brutus tugged on his leash and Bitch snapped back to alertness, quick to sooth him with a gentle pat. She pinched the meat of her thigh sharply and reached for the familiar knot of anger in her chest. This was not the place for soft feelings. An enemy could find them any second, she had to be ready.

Bitch glanced down at her dogs and bit her lip in thought. Once she powered them up, her dogs would make a lot more noise. Then again, without her power they'd be helpless at the beginning of any fight. Grue had said to wait as long as she could, but how was she meant to know when that was?

Regent's humming declared the door to be open, then a tap on her shoulder told Bitch she could follow the others through it. She kept her eyes on the hallway right up until she was through and the heavy metal swung shut behind her.

The other side was different. Instead of the bland offices they'd been walking through, they were surrounded by riveted factory walls. That nasty smell was back, and even with the layer of dust Bitch could see deep grooves in the floor.

"This was one of the routes from the factory floor to where they loaded the trucks." Tattletale whispered, "We follow this to the right and it'll take us exactly where we want to go."

Their target was in the factory. Tattletale and Grue had poured over the blueprints for hours and decided that was the most likely place for the Empire to keep their stash. There was some kind of storage basement thing, right in the middle of the factory floor, easy to defend and easy to escape from. Tattletale had followed up with her power and she was certain that was their target.

Which was what bothered Bitch so much as they crept closer to their goal. She didn't understand everything, but the Empire's main stash was a big deal. Most of their dirty money would be there, a ton of drugs too, probably weapons...

It wasn't going to cripple them if they lost it, but it would hurt them. Those Empire shits weren't stupid either. They covered their asses so well that she hadn't been able to find one of their fucking dogfighting rings in almost half a year of searching. They didn't even care that much about those; Everyone knew it was really just Hookwolf's hobby, the twisted evil piece of shit.

So finding one of the Empire's real secrets felt too easy. Tattletale wouldn't even tell them who the boss was and now they were trusting that he'd been able to get this kind of info? It didn't feel right, but the team wasn't going to take her instincts over Tattletale's words.

A shift in the air got her attention. Bitch wrinkled her nose as the stench went from bad to worse. She was about to call for the others' attention when Grue beat her to it, pointing to a corner ahead of them as he gave the signal to stop.

It took Bitch a second to realise, the dim light they were standing in brightened near that corner.

Tattletale said, "They'll have turned on all the lights out on the factory floor. That's our target up ahead."

"You guys know the plan." Said Grue, "We hit them hard and fast. There'll be a cargo lift in the middle of the room, do not let anyone get it moving."

Nuzzling at her leg had Bitch reflexively reaching down to one of her dogs, except all her dogs were standing in front of her. Looking down she found the other canine on their team radiating a blend of anxiety and determination. The dark-haired wolf jerked her head towards their leader and Bitch understood.

"Grue." She waited for him to look at her before continuing, careful not to challenge him; "Runt wants to scout ahead."

Runt drew back a few steps when he looked at her, but only a few steps. She stood her ground and returned his stare until he nodded. Slowly.

"Fine, but you'd better be careful. Don't get caught and don't do anything dumb. Got it?"

Bitch ground her teeth while Runt nodded eagerly. Their newest member crept down the corridor and around the corner while her body shrunk and shifted colours to almost match the floor. Bitch looked on, torn between anger at Grue calling her friend dumb and concern for the inexperienced girl.

Then there was even more waiting.

It didn't take long for her patience to run out, leaving her restless and eager for a distraction. A scuffing sound drew her attention to Regent and Bitch kept her gaze on him.

He didn't look any different than any other job. His costume was the same, and beneath it he slounched on his feet the same as ever. His mask was the same blank face and if he took it off she knew he'd have the same mask beneath it. She knew.

...only that wasn't what he really was. She knew that too. So she kept looking at him, and saw...nothing, just a mess of feelings and signals that made no sense and it made her madder and madder every time she looked. Knowing the truth just made it harder than ever to stare at him and still not understand.

Years of trying, and she could never understand anyone.

Crouching to the level of her dogs, Rachel pulled them closer, drawing on them for reassurance; The only ones she'd never been confused by, and who'd never been confused by her.

Until a few days ago anyway. Until she'd followed a trail of blood expecting another dying bum and found...a friend.

A friend who was taking way too long to finish scouting. It couldn't be that big a job. What if something had happened to her while she was just a little dog? Had she even made herself tough enough to survive being attacked?!

Images leapt to her mind, dogs she'd found in her search for Hookwolf's fighting pits. Dumped in empty warehouses and abandoned squats. Torn into bloody chunks and left in the makeshift rings that they'd died in, trash scattered over them like, like they didn't matter.

_'That's what they do to dogs. She's alone with them!'_

Bitch let her power flow off her, feeling the dogs around her and pushing it towards them. She stepped forward as they began to stretch and swell, then Grue was in front of her and grabbing her coat. She tried to step back but he already had a grip and she couldn't break it, forcing her to stay where she was while he stared down at her through his mask.

He was shaking slightly, his grip tight but he didn't touch anything but her coat. She had no idea what that meant. Was he angry? She felt like he was angry, but then she was almost always wrong when she went by feeling. Worried? No, he'd been mean to Taylor, he couldn't be worried about her. It had to be anger, but if Taylor was in real trouble...

_'He won't forget if I betray him here.'_

But...if she let Taylor get hurt, would that be a bigger betrayal? All she had to do was whistle and he'd have to let go and defend himself. Then she could run to help-

A low _yip_ had both of them looking down at the rust coloured puppy that was already growing back into a dark wolf at their feet. Grue stepped back but Bitch was too relieved to care. They hadn't hurt her friend. It was okay.

Tattletale laughed beneath her breath and bared her teeth, "So what'd you find Lassy? Is Timmy down the well?" Then they all watched closely as Taylor glanced around and began drawing in the dust with a paw that looked thinner and more pointed with every breath. A circle, then a much larger rectangle around it and a slightly bigger rectangle around that. A couple blobby shapes were drawn here and there, then a long thin rectangle joined to the biggest one by a bend- Oh!

Bitch could see it now, this was the room past the corner. Taylor, no, Runt had done a good job scouting. Even Brian nodded at her when she drew a bunch of 'x's on the map, nods were usually good.

"Those are the empire guys?" Grue whispered, getting a canine nod in return; "They're armed?" Got him another nod and Runt pawing at the air and make little huffs each time, like a gun.

Looking closer, there were two crosses in the middle circle and five more around the edge of the room, between the two big rectangles. Furrowing her brow, Bitch bit her lip and tried to figure out what that meant. If she asked the others they'd just think she was stupider than they already did, maybe an inner wall?

"This a balcony dork?" Regent saved her from looking dumb, which saved him from being punched for insulting her friend. Runt gave another confirmation and they were quiet for a minute, all of them examining the map closely.

"Right." Grue pointed at her, then at the circle in the middle of the map, "I want you going for these two Bitch, take them out as quick as you can. Don't stop when I kill the lights, don't let them press anything. Understand?"

"Ye-" She croaked, quickly clearing her throat and finishing, "Yeah."

He kept pointing to them each in turn, sending Regent after the two furthest from the entrance, then giving Tattletale and himself the two closest. Then he stopped, not pointing at anything, not talking, just for a second or two before he took a deep breath and pointed at Runt, then to the final cross, "You go after this one."

Just when she thought that he might be being nicer to Taylor, Grue reached down and grabbed the paw she'd been using to draw. Bitch barely held back from hitting him. Grinding her teeth while he said, "And be careful, okay Taylor?" Like she hadn't just proven herself by scouting. Asshole.

They stood up and suddenly it wasn't the time to be angry with her leader. No, she had a much better target coming up and with the power she'd been feeding them her dogs were almost ready to shed their old skin. Boney spurs already pushed through to begin their armour and they were just big enough to ride for a short while, if she kept her legs tucked up on their back.

At the corner they paused, Bitch climbed on Angelica and nestled herself into a good position. She reached into her coat pocket and found one of the little bottles there while Grue reached a hand up and extended all five fingers.

Four.

Her pulse sped up, blood thumping through her veins.

Three.

Angelica tensed in response, ready for the command.

Two.

She could feel the others behind her, not just the dogs.

One.

Moments like these, all her friends felt the same.

A fist jabbed down and Angelica shot around the corner like a rocket. The warehouse was huge, tall, dimly lit and ringed by an old balcony two stories up. Across the room a skinhead lounging on the railing saw her. She glimpsed stairs as Angelica wove between towering rolls of rotten paper and strange machines stinking of rust, Bitch saw the target ahead and whistled a command as she tossed the bottle, shouts just starting to ring through the empty air. Then everything went black and cold and silent, Angelica not slowing at all.

The pounding of paws on the metal floor was gone, Bitch knew it didn't matter. The floor was still there and she could still smell that nasty fucking smell. Which meant her dogs could still find their way to the bottle she hadn't heard break. As long as it had broken.

There was no warning, just an impact and meaty thud she felt even through the dark. Bitch grabbed the struggling body that Angelica had pounced on and rolled off her dog onto it. She found an arm and a hand and a gun it was holding, then she slammed the hand against the floor before the fuck could get their bearings, feeling the crack and the loss of the gun's weight.

An elbow came out of the dark and sunk into her gut, pushing the air out of her lungs. Bitch didn't give a damn, grabbing for the neck and wrapping her arm around it. The blows kept coming but only a few hit her, most finding air or harsh metal in the darkness, but they kept coming until Bitch was sure she had fucked up in copying Brian's hold. Slowly her opponent was getting better at finding her, until one hand caught a handful of her hair and she knew he was about to break her nose.

Then something knocked his head to the side and he went limp in her arms.

The light returned in an instant, revealing Grue standing above her and a skinhead slumped over her. Her leader was panting, his fists clenched and his head cocked to look at the man she kicked away, ignoring both of them to look for the dogs that she found just a few feet away, piled atop another skinhead.

They were on a circular platform in the middle of the factory floor, a control panel sticking up from the edge within arm's reach. Its base was smeared with blood.

_'The dumbass must have fucked up his knuckles punching it.'_

With a snort, Bitch hauled herself to her feet and took a look around the factory, wrinkling her nose at the continuing stench of...paper? Whatever.

The others were fine. Runt was up on the balcony, a huge wolf standing proudly over a little lump of clothes that wasn't moving; Regent was wandering along the wall towards a pair of spasming skinheads; and Tattletale was at the top of the stairs nearest the entrance, her taser twirling through her fingers while she pulled something out of a pouch.

A leather glove was thrust in front of her face, holding a pair of zip ties. Looking along the arm she found Grue's painted skull and nodded. Not bothering to take what he'd offered as she walked over to her dogs and whistled sharply. All three dogs scrambled away to stand behind her, revealing their target curled up and whimpering.

He looked bad for a second, then Bitch realised most of the blood was coming from a pathetic little head wound and kicked him in the chin to put him to sleep. Her dogs had barely broken the skin of his arms and legs as they wrestled him down and Bitch couldn't understand what had cut his head until a particularly strong waft of aniseed drew her attention to the shattered glass he was lying on top of. What was left of her bottle.

This time she had to hold in a laugh, rolling him over and pulling a couple of her own ties out of a pocket. She had his wrists and ankles bound in a few seconds, then grudgingly shoved a dressing onto his head.

Together she and Grue dragged them clear of the elevator just as the others jogged onto it. No, just two of them were jogging, Regent was walking behind and twirling his fancy stick. Grue barked at him to hurry up while Tattletale walked up to the elevator controls and Bitch checked on Taylor.

Her friend was a bit scared, but mostly she looked proud of herself and bore Bitch's scrutiny without complaining. She didn't look hurt, but then Bitch knew she could heal anyway. It was just...nice, to check on a friend after a good fight.

"Everyone ready, 'cause I found the button." Tattletale called them back to business. Though Bitch took another moment to check her friend one last time.

They gathered close to the controls, Bitch and her dogs furthest from it, then Regent and Tattletale, with Grue and Runt by the panel. She couldn't see him, but Bitch knew Grue would be taking one last look around the tied up thugs. Making sure they wouldn't get away before he said-

"I'm hitting the button, be ready." -that.

The floor shuddered beneath them and something heavy _clunked_ below the floor. Then the elevator began to go down, slowly dropping them into a metal walled shaft and leaving the factory above them.

Tattletale began to mutter after a minute, "This is taking too long."

"Yeah," Regent replied, "This thing is fucking slow."

"No...that's not it, we should have already reached the basement." She gestured in the corner of Bitch's eye, pointing to the riveted and rusted walls around them, "This isn't right, it should have gone down one floor but we're already past..."

She trailed off when a patch of smooth grey metal appeared at the base of the wall, being revealed more and more as the elevator kept dropping. Until they could see the entire thing, as wide as the platform, curved and smooth and-

"That is way too fancy for this dump." Regent whispered. Then Angelica stepped forward and they all froze at the door sliding open on silent bearings to reveal a long hall that was equal parts raw stone, rusted clanking pipes, and sleek metal. It made Bitch think of a mutt who'd had a show dog for a parent. Caught between ugly practicality and beauty.

Then two skinheads stepped in front of the doors and ruined the effect.

They didn't even have time to shout before darkness coated one and the other went down with Regent's taser stick in his gut. Grue leapt for his darkness, and bounced off the wolf that had had the same idea as him. He rolled out of the fall and dispelled the darkness in time to see the other skinhead shrink and twist into a bulldog. An angry one, with a smug wolf standing on its stomach and holding it down.

The smugness was gone a second later, Grue kneeling and almost headbutting Runt with how close he got to her. He hissed something Bitch couldn't hear and the cheer drained out of the wolf, then he kept going and she started to look scared.

Everything went red, her fists clenched tight and Rachel was about to start swinging when slender hand caught her by the shoulder. She turned, swung -_blonde hair, clinging and sobbing, afraid and sad and so so lonely_\- and stopped with her fist barely an inch from Tattletale's nose. The thinker's eyes were fixed on Bitch's knuckles, her breath brushing the tips of Bitch's fingers as she relaxed her hand and let it fall to her side.

She turned back to face Grue and Runt, and focused on the hand on her arm to distract from her friend looking small and scared. It sucked...but Bitch was sure Grue would've gone over not going after each other's targets with her when they were planning the job. Runt'd fucked up, defending her wouldn't help.

It still seemed far too long before Grue reached out to pat Runt and the back and whispered something that made her perk up a little. Then he stood up and it was like nothing had happened, except Runt still looked kinda stunned.

Regent waved a bulky black radio to get their attention, not one of theirs. "My one was carrying this, how 'bout yours?" He looked back and forth between Grue and Runt with his teeth bared and Bitch fought to remember how he'd been before.

Grue distracted her by pulling another radio from his skinhead's empty clothes. "This is a military radio, not an old walkie like the guys up there had. Tat?" He held it out and she took it with some kind of scrunched up look to her face. She squinted at it for a while, then swore violently and pulled out her phone.

"No signal," She showed them the screen, "Which makes no sense with the shaft right above us. We're in some kind of jamming field, and these-" she gestured with the radio, "-are definitely tinker tech. Not from anyone I recognise either."

"Leet?" Bitch asked

"Nope. The radios maybe, but these walls were made by the same person in the same style, no way he'd build this for them."

"No way they'd let that moron into their base either." Grue growled.

"So we have an unknown tinker, probably working for the empire, and a secret underground base which we have no blueprints for? That about right?" Regent asked the air.

Whining drew everyone's attention down to Runt, who responded by cocking her head towards the door.

Grue sighed, "I'd ask if we're going to keep going but..."

Bitch spoke for them all, "We can't leave. We need the money." Nobody disagreed.

After bundling the guards into the lift, they set out into the tunnels beyond the elevator. Quickly finding a maze of sloping corridors with the same mix of stone, pipes, and tinker metal. Some were floored entirely in the metal, others were just stone with the occasional puddle-like patch of it. All echoed with the din of the pipes, making it impossible to talk quietly.

Bitch's dogs were on edge, uncomfortable below the ground and with the constant noise. She'd have been the same if it wasn't for Tattletale walking confidently ahead of them, picking a direction at each intersection with barely a moment's hesitation and happily ignoring the doors they found here and there.

Until she found one she didn't ignore, leading them into a large room with a bunch of cranes keeping the roof in shadow. Only looking at them did Bitch realise that the gentle light in the tunnels was coming from the strange metal, but Tattletale was hurrying to another door across the empty room and she had to follow quickly, back into tunnels.

Slowly the mix changed, from stone and metal and pipes, to just metal and pipes, then the rusted pipes began to look newer even as they multiplied until the tunnel was walled and roofed in them. Thankfully these were quieter, only to be heard by the rushing of water through them. Or whatever it was.

Then there was an end to the tunnel, a wall that the pipes disappeared into, and a square patch of the same metal recessed into it. Another door.

"Well this isn't ominous at all." Regent muttered, Grue elbowing him in the ribs.

"Tattletale, where the hell are we?" Grue whispered.

"The Empire's main stash?"

"You don't sound sure."

"I'm not. We're somewhere under downtown, I think, and this is definitely where those tunnels are meant to lead to."

Regent interrupted, "Last I checked the Empire keeps their goodies on the move, you're telling me they build a base like this every time?"

"No...no I don't think this is the stash at all."

"Then what the hell is it!?"

"I don't kn-"

Lisa went silent when the door slid open. They all did.

"I'm sorry." Said the gas masked figure lounging inside, "We were tired of waiting for you to come in."

Sitting around the same card table as Krieg, the other four Empire capes began to laugh.

* * *

A/N: So, the temporary transformation of my favoured quest into a railroaded frustration shunted me back into a writing mood. Unfortunately the things that kept me out of one (being broke, unemployed, and in a country that just voted such as to make it very hard to find jobs in my field) are continuing and I'm currently putting most of my writing energies towards commissions wherever I can find them.

Meaning you lot shouldn't expect regular updates to resume just yet.


	14. Bitch: 3

"Come in, come in. What hosts would we be if we left our guests on the doorstep?" Proclaimed Krieg, dropping a few cards to the table between him and the Undersiders, and gesturing magnanimously with his emptied hand. The motion drawing attention to the wide metal room he sat in and the doors lining its walls. A cluster of mismatched chairs sat around a card table in the middle of the floor, clearly out of place.

None of the Undersiders moved to accept the invitation.

The only woman among the Empire capes -wearing a tight red bodysuit and crammed into a battered loveseat beside a man clad in leather and black armour- spoke up, "Guests? All I see are a gaggle of naughty children." That got a round of laughter: A restrained snicker from the man with his arm around her; Deep chuckles from the tattooed and maskless man on a bar stool across the table from them; And an unrestrained belly laugh from the man standing behind Krieg in ornate armour.

Krieg laughed along with them, the sound distorted from behind the gas mask and peaked cap that hid his face. "Now my dear Othala, we can hardly call them intruders. Why we practically invited them in."

Bitch growled low in her throat, at his tone, his words, the trap that they'd blundered into. Then Tattletale joined in with the Empire capes laughter and she froze.

_'What the hell?! Why is she laughing?!'_

The Nazis trailed off into silence but Tattletale kept right on going, bending over and clutching her stomach. Bitch was ready to walk over and punch her just to make it stop when she finally started talking, looking up at Krieg with bared teeth. "Oh that's a good one. You invited us in? No wonder you're losing at poker, even with that mask on you can't bluff worth a damn."

Even Bitch understood the way Krieg went stiff and silent. She bared her own teeth to match her teammate. So it wasn't a trap, had they just walking into a lair that wasn't expecting them? And how the hell were they going to get back out.

Stepping in closer to the others, Bitch reached out with her power and began to slowly push more of into her dogs. Hoping that Tattletale would keep drawing the Nazis' attention.

"I hadn't heard much about you little thieves," Krieg spoke again, harsher now, "But I guess you must be Tattletale. Another Thinker who doesn't know when to shut up."

He snapped his gun up to point at Tattletale.

Regent snorted, "A luger? Really? Not even trying for subtlety huh?" Krieg's grip on the gun tightened with a creak of leather, and the other capes at the card table tensed, Stormtiger rolling his shoulder's with a snarl.

"Hey, hey." Tattletale stepped forward with her hands at her waist, palm up and empty. "There's no need for that. You're here to guard something, something important to the Empire, and we just strolled right through your security."

They got even more tense, Krieg's finger slipping inside the trigger guard. Bitch grabbed Angelica's by a bone spur and braced to be dragged along with her. Then Tattletale took another step forward and put her hands to the back of her head.

"Easy!" She urged, "Calm down. There's no need for that." Once they'd relaxed a little she kept going. "Now like I was saying, we got in this far, but we're not going in any further. We didn't know this was something important, we just came to steal a bit of dirty money is all."

Krieg lowered his gun ever so slightly, speaking in the same smooth voice that he'd begun with, "Oh that's all is it?"

"You know how it goes. Nothing personal." She looked around and sighed, "Now since it turned out to be a lot more than that, I guess we could have a fight right here, in conditions that a tactician like you must know favours us, or..."

Krieg lowered his gun all the way and cocked his head to the side, "Or what?"

"Or we could just write the whole thing off as a test of your security. We turn around and leave, and you don't even get charged for us showing you where the holes were. Everyone wins, or at least nobody loses which is almost as good."

"Fuck you!" Stormtiger growled, kicking away his bar stool and taking a step towards them. Only for Krieg to hold up a hand to stop him.

"Well that is an interesting proposition, and surprisingly so coming from a group with your reputation." This time it was Bitch who tensed, Grue stiffening beside her. "Certainly you're right that I am a tactician and am aware that fighting here would favour you four, and those beasts of yours."

He rose from his chair and leant forward, resting both hands on the table. Then he snapped his head up and spat, "Pity you didn't think it all the way through you arrogant little whore."

Then Bitch heard it, almost hidden by the distant clanking of the pipes, footsteps in the tunnel behind them. A lot of footsteps. She spun to look behind them, though only Regent and Runt looked with her, the other two keeping their eyes on the capes.

Krieg kept going, "As soon as we heard you outside the door Crusader sent one of his ghosts to gather the soldiers from the factory. All of them. Now how do you think a fight will go when you're attacked from bo-"

_thmp_

Krieg stared at the little black thing that Tattletale had lobbed onto the table. The grenade she'd been holding behind her head. Then he shot her and dived for cover.

Or he tried to, his hand jolted to the side as he fired and Stormtiger roared in pain, clutching his arm. Krieg fell to the floor in a tangle of limbs and then a cloud of darkness engulfed the enemy capes.

"Run!" Grue commanded. Bitch didn't hesitate to do it. Whistling sharply and letting Angelica drag her towards the door Tattletale was sprinting for. Regent was almost keeping pace with her and looking back she saw Grue not far behind- _'Shit!'_

Runt wasn't running beside her other dogs, the black wolf was stiff and shaking; standing just inside the doorway, eyes wide with fear. Before Bitch could yank Angelica into a turn Grue skidded to a stop and ran back towards her, yelling, "Keep going!"

Bitch kept her eyes on them, trusting Angelica to keep going and Brutus and Judas to follow her. Something pinged off the floor near Runt, then Grue slammed into her and heaved her up onto his shoulders. His looked down the tunnel behind her, voices and footsteps now echoing clearly from it, then he hurled himself away from the door and-

"Bitch!" Tattletale yelled, pulling her attention back to the front and the door that the slender villainess was trying to open. Messing with some panel she'd pried open beside it, full of little wires and lights. It wasn't opening, so Bitch guessed what Tattletale wanted and whistled two quick notes then pointed to the door, pouring as much power into Brutus as she dared.

Tattletale dived out of the way and he smashed into the door like a train. Only to bounce off it with a whimper and very slight ringing sound. He'd barely dented it. "Fucking tinkers!" Swore Tattletale, burying her head in the tangle of wires again while Bitch checked that Brutus was okay.

Before Bitch could look to see how Grue and Runt were doing, a figure stumbled out of the cloud of darkness, a man wearing a leather coat and pants, with a black breastplate and a mask with an ornate 'V' worked into the design. He brought up a bulky gun and opened fire, bullets making a trail across the ceiling when Regent gestured sharply at him.

Except instead of fighting the way his arm was seizing against his chest, Victor twisted with the motion of his arm and his other hand lashed out like a snake with a handful of blades. Metal flashed through the air towards them and then was hidden by Judas' bulk as the dog (now the size of a small horse) jumped between Bitch and Victor.

Whatever Victor was going to do next, another cloud of darkness cut him off as Grue slid to a stop amongst them, Runt still on his shoulders though Bitch could see she was calming down. Grue dropped her without ceremony, whirling to face the door they'd come in by and dropping more darkness right as a skinhead with a machine gun was sprinting into the room. By the way the gun clattered out of the darkness and along the floor a moment later, Bitch guessed he must have tripped.

For a few moments the only noises were her dogs breathing heavily as she pumped them all up to Brutus' size, and the scratching of Tattletale's attempts to get the door open. Then a blast of air shoved her off Angelica's back as the darkness in the middle of the room vanished.

Krieg, Crusader and Othala were all on the floor, only the first two looking like they meant to be there. Meanwhile Stormtiger was standing with one foot on top of the armchair, the other on top of the table, and the air around him spinning in a tightly focused tornado. It amplified his voice as he screamed, "You didn't think I'd figure out how to beat your trick Grue! You think your power's worth shit against me!"

He snarled and the air rippled around his arms. Then his legs kicked out in different directions and he fell off the table, knocking cards and cash everywhere.

Even as Stormtiger fell though, Krieg was standing and raising his gun, Bitch could already see Stormtiger moving and if he blew away the rest of the darkness they'd be fucked. Crusader stood and pulled Othala to her feet, then snapped his arm out to the side, a row of ghostly duplicates sliding out of his body.

Bitch got ready to fight as long as she could, then Tattletale shouted behind them, "Got it!" and the door slid open. They retreated into the top of a stairwell, Judas and Brutus staying between them and the gunfire even as Bitch gritted her teeth at what those bastards were doing to her dogs! They got through and the door slid closed again, the gunfire becoming a distant _ping ping_ noise.

"Just a second, I think I've got the hang of this. Yah!" Tattletale shouted and stepped back, shaking one of her gloved hands, but she was nodding at the same time. "That'll stop them opening the door for a while, but the Tinker who made it has to be somewhere in this place so we need to move."

"Right." Grue said. "Our exit's blocked so we need a new one, or we need leverage to get out past them, Tattletale, is the Tinker inside here somewhere?"

It took a few moments for her to reply, and she was holding her head as she said, "This place is new, the Tinker who built it is powerful, limited but powerful, yeah, yeah they have him on lockdown in here."

Grue nodded at them all. "Okay, then we grab the Tinker and use him as a hostage, or to tell us another way out." Then he pointed down. "He'll be down there somewhere I bet," Tattletale nodded, "Let's move."

They rushed for the stairs and began to climb down. Bitch taking the stairs two at a time rather than riding Angelica down the tight confines of the stairwell. She'd cracked ribs trying that kind of thing before.

Three flights down, a girl's voice spoke from amongst behind them, shock sending Regent stumbling down the last few stairs of that flight. "What about reinforcements?"

All eyes turned to the black wolf and found a girl dressed in a black bodystocking standing behind them. Except after blinking a few times Bitch realised it wasn't any kind of clothing, but a thick layer of fur across all but her head and hands.

Tattletale spoke first, "Runt?"

"Yeah, I, I think I'm okay with this form, what about reinforcements?"

Regent began a wolf whistle, then cut himself off and said, "What about them?"

"If reinforcements come, more Empire capes, won't we be trapped? Shouldn't we fight our way out now? While we have a chance?"

Bitch found herself agreeing with Runt, even if it was weirding her out a whole lot to see a human being whose feelings made sense. All it would take was a few more capes and they'd be too outnumbered to get away, even with a hostage. They'd get hurt bad in a fight with those odds, but they might at least survive.

"No, they have those radios remember?" Tattletale replied, "Those things can reach the surface but they used Crusader to get the troops. The only reason that makes sense is if those radios reach much further than the paper mill. Krieg's afraid that if news gets out before we're dealt with, Kaiser will lose trust in him."

"That's it." Bitch growled. Suddenly angry at the girl who got them into this whole mess. "You walked us into this shit and now you say that we should keep trusting you? Why the fuck should we?!"

Regent stepped between them as Bitch tried to grab Tattletale. "Hey! We don't have time for this crap. Grue, which way are we going?"

They turned to Grue for a decision, and Bitch felt a lead weight drop into her gut. He was slumped against the wall, a dark red stain trickling down the metal behind him.

"Shit!"

"Grue!"

"Are you-!"

"I'm fine." He lied so badly even she could tell. "Krieg just got a lucky shot off is all."

With a little gasp, Runt clutched her hands over her mouth. "While you were saving me. That's when you got shot, isn't it?" Runt padded towards him. "All because I froze."

Grue groaned as he stood up straight, bracing one hand against the wall. Then he looked down at their newest member and said, "Don't worry about it. Your first time out and that's what we come up against? Anyone would freeze up," He reached out and patted her on the shoulder, "It happens. Just don't do it again, please."

He stumbled forward, catching himself on Judas' side. "Tattletale's right. A guy like Krieg, he cares more about his position than anything else. We stick to the plan and grab the Tinker."

Bitch growled, already imagining the shit storm that could be coming for them. Grue's hand shot out and took a handful of her coat, dragging her towards him and forcing her to look into the skull painted on his helmet.

"Bitch, we're going down." He said evenly.

He was injured. Weakened. She could take him out easily...

Bitch dropped her gaze to the floor and nodded. Commanding Judas to stick beside Grue while Tattletale handed Runt a bunch of bandages and waved her in his direction.

There were another five flights of stairs before they reached the bottom and another door. Tattletale immediately set to work on the panel beside it. Getting it open in less than a minute and revealing a long corridor to yet another door, only this one had a camera above it.

Grue had a patch of darkness over it in an instant, but Tattletale still sprinted down the corridor and Bitch was right behind her, dragging Grue onto Angelica with her. They slid to a stop at the door, and Bitch found she could hear something on the other side. Someone yelling, loud, then she forgot all about it at the sound of a lot more yelling from back the way they'd come.

"Tats, you said that door would hold." Regent moaned.

"Shut up! This one's harder. And I said it would hold for a while. The Tinker must have overridden what I did to it."

Bitch got ready as the sound of boots thundering against stairs grew louder and louder.

"Well maybe you want to go close the door we just came through, by us more time." Regent kept talking. Tattletale didn't bother answering him, and it paid off a few seconds later when the door slid open and they piled into...

Bitch had never seen a Tinker's lab before.

Tattletale leapt to get the door closed behind them, but since she couldn't help with that Bitch took the time to look around.

Everything was made of the same smooth metal. Not just the room itself, but everything in it too. The shelves full of machine parts that flanked the door; The huge vats -at least three times her height- that filled the wall on her left, as well as the pipes that came out of the roof and connected with them; Even the bed that sat against the far wall and the long L-shaped workbench that ran along the wall and divided the room in half lengthways.

Actually not quite everything. Looking closer she realised that there was a curtained off area near the bed and the curtain was just the same colour as the metal. Plus there was the mess that covered the workbench and the pile of cloth that sat beside it shivering...huh?

It took a moment for her to realise that it wasn't just a pile of clothes. It was a cape, short and fat and huddled against the workbench, shaking violently as he stared at them.

There was a computer in front of him, but he wasn't touching it. He wasn't moving. He didn't even look like he was breathing.

Bitch almost laughed. They'd actually made it to the tinker, in their own lair! Now there he was, the Empire scum, shaking and almost pissing himself at the sight of them. She stepped forward and laughed outright when the coward screamed and staggered back from the bench.

"Please don't hurt me!"

With Brian slumped against one of the shelves, and Regent and Runt trying to shove the other one in front of the door, Tattletale walked up past Bitch and laid it out for him.

"So long as you do what we say, you won't get hurt. I promise kid."

He kept staggering back, one hand trailing along the worktop. "I'm sorry to doubt you, b-but why would I trust you. You're, you're here for me aren't you. To take me!" With that shout he snatched up some kind of gun, covered in blinking lights and made of even more of the strange metal. "I refuse, I won't g-g-go!"

Tattletale just sighed dramatically and drew her own gun, heedless of the danger. Strangely, the tinker didn't pull the trigger. She kept it pointed down and towards the wall, speaking softly, "You're not going to shoot me."

The tinker smiled beneath the simple hood that his his face from the nose up. "Ma'am, do you really think an Empire cape would have a problem shooting a thief?"

"I think anyone would have a problem shooting a thief with a glue gun." The tinker froze, starting to stutter something when Tattletale pointed to his gun and said, "There's still some glue on the barrel, you're not fooling anybody. This one's real though," She waved her own weapon, "So come out from behind the bench and we promise not to hurt you."

"Much." Called Regent with a laugh. Tattletale turned slightly towards him, and the tinker grabbed for a pile of pipes and sheet metal. He pulled something out of it with both hands, Bitch shouted, "Look out!" and then Tattletale swept her gun up as he struggled to aim some kind of gun at her, so big he needed both hands and could still barely lift it.

The blonde drew first but instead of firing she yelled, "Drop it!" Then a streak of grey shot from the cannon and went straight through her, hurling her to the ground.

Rage blinded Bitch and she charged with a primal roar, her dogs loping ahead of her. He was already running, the cannon that killed her friend abandoned on the floor as he ran for his life. She slid over the workbench, grinning as he ran smack into the wall and almost bounced off. Her dogs were almost on him, then the wall slid open and she screamed denial.

"Noooo!"

The wall slid shut an instant before Brutus slammed into it, and refused to give even when all three dogs attacked it with teeth and claws.

"Stop it. He's already gone." Tattletale spoke from the floor, her voice slicing through the rage and leaving Bitch dreading the sight of her. She sounded weak. "That was his backdoor, a one way elevator straight to the surface."

She couldn't just stand with her back turned like a coward! Bitch forced herself to turn around and felt a fresh wave of fury at what she saw. Tattletale, no, Lisa's arm had been turned to stone. All the way from the tips of her fingers to her shoulder. A few feet away the shattered piece of a stone gun lay on the floor.

"Wait, you think-? Bitch no! I'm fine." Lisa yelled.

It took a few seconds for the words to register, then she blinked rapidly and cocked her head to the side. How the hell could she be fine?

"It doesn't effect living tissue. I just can't get up because my sleeve and glove are made of stone and I can't move my arm."

Bitch slumped in relief. "Then we shatter it, the stone'll be thin. No big deal."

"It's not her sleeve we need to worry about." Called Grue.

Drawn by his voice, Bitch looked at the door and saw a ragged patch now stretched across most of it. An uneven splotch of lighter grey. Stone, replacing the tinker metal that had protected them.

Lying on the floor with her free hand over her eyes, Tattletale moaned, "It probably didn't quite go all the way through, which is why they're not already in here, but as soon as the tinker makes it to the surface he'll call it in and..." She didn't need to finish. An inch or two of stone would shatter with a good kick, let alone what they'd throw at the door.

Regent and Runt had given up on pushing the shelves in front of the door, now they helped Grue to his feet and the five of them gathered in the middle of the room. Nobody spoke. They all knew how fucked they were.

Except, Bitch thought, there was one thing. Something Grue had said they weren't going to do.

Now she had to convince him different. "Grue," She started, trying to think of what to say, fumbling for words and-

"Grue, we've got no choice." Tattletale interrupted her thoughts. "I know you didn't want to do this but..."

"I'm not exactly worried about discipline at this point Tats." He said, voice low and quiet. "I don't mind, not with the alternative, especially if-" He groaned, "-it can heal a bullet wound, but..." He looked around them, barely holding himself up, and turned to face Runt "Can you really give us that much of a boost?"

Runt bit her lip and hesitated, staring at the ground. Then she looked up, she looked at Bitch.

"Not alone."

* * *

A/N: Fuck it, I'm back. Which means an update within a week of the last update, sometimes sooner. Can't guarantee they'll all be for this story, but a lot will be. Also can't guarantee the uploads here will always be on time, as I mostly hang out and post stories on SB and SV.


	15. terror

Frank didn't exactly know what was going on. Then again he usually knew even less than that.

He'd headed for the old paper mill on Jackson Street after work, just like always. Collected a weapon and some ammo from the armoury (really just a padlocked janitor's closet with the shelves stocked with guns) and gone where his senior told him to. Just like old times. Except the army had made him defend a government that turned around and let filth pour into the country, destroying the lives of regular Americans. The Empire wouldn't sell out the working man. It wouldn't promote some Jap instead of him, it stood for guys like him.

Least he could do in exchange was stand by a window and not ask questions about what he was guarding. Not like some of the other guys and their constant bitching.

His partner for the evening, a jittery little fuck named Jacob, was an extra special example of that lack of discipline. Just being around the guy made him long for the day when he'd done his time and could move up the ranks. Away from shitheads like Jacob who were clearly just in it for a discount on their coke.

Understanding the necessity of recruiting them didn't make him feel any better about it. If only the government didn't treat them like criminals, there'd be no need to take anyone who was willing to fight for the cause.

Frank sighed and ignored Jacob's attempts to start a conversation about the ball game a few days ago. Eventually the junkie shitstain realised that he wasn't interested and stuck to his post, giving him some peace and quiet at last.

The hours ticked by like they always did, slow and boring but with the dull satisfaction of a job well done. There was a brief commotion over a black out...or maybe a brown out? Frank killed a few minutes trying to remember the difference between those two while he kept his attention on the cracked asphalt outside. Unlike Jacob and his wandering eyes, Frank knew how to pass the time without compromising his watch.

In fact, he was just thinking of talking to one of the higher ups about setting up training sessions for the boys, get the junkies some basic training at least, when movement in the corner of his eye drew his gaze. Then he yelped and scrambled to the side. A helmet was coming out of the floor. Metal, but transparent, all misty and ghostlike.

The helmet rose into the air and Frank's fear turned to awe as he recognised the ornate Viking armour. All metal and leather, with a spear slung across his back in some kind of leather sheathe. This was one of Crusader's ghosts. This was a hero of the Empire.

Frank tried to salute and bow at the same time, fumbling both and settling for standing ramrod straight as the ghost finished rising out of the floor. It pointed at him and spoke in a quiet rasp, "You. Get the rest. Follow me. No radios."

Getting orders directly from one of their heroes, it was like a dream coming true, he'd literally dreamed of something like this happening. Well Frank wasn't going to waste the opportunity to impress his superiors. He snapped off a salute, no fucking around this time, and snapped at Jacob, "You get the guys from the east side, I'll get the rest and we'll meet back here."

"No." The ghost interrupted, "Meet on the factory floor, be quick." Then it was floating off through a dusty office towards the centre of the building.

Frank was about to run to complete his orders when a sweaty hand grabbed his elbow, immediately making him wish he'd worn a long sleeved shirt. Jacob looked even more pathetic than usual as he asked, "Uh, Frank, which way is east?"

Slapping his hand away, Frank pointed and resisted the urge to just shoot the dumb fuck, finger drifting to his safety and flexing against it. In the end he figured getting his job done was more important, but it was a close thing. What a waste of skin.

It didn't take long to make the rounds of the other posts, especially once he found the senior in charge of this shift and told him what was going on. Tom wasn't the best CO he'd ever had, but he certainly knew his shit. A few quick commands and Frank was joined by three more guys to spread the word.

He double timed, eager to be the first to complete his task, and soon he was urging the guys he'd gathered to keep up while they jogged down the delivery corridor. When he came out into the brighter lights of the paper factory itself, Frank had a moment to feel smug that he had gotten their first, then his stomach went cold with dread.

Everyone was down. Seven guys had been guarding this room. Trusted guys, given the last line of defence before the capes themselves, and they were scattered around like trash. Alive at least, but that didn't do a thing to stem the familiar mix of anger and fear rising in his chest. Someone had snuck in here and knocked out his boys, some shitty cape thought they could fuck with the Empire! No fucking way!

Checking his gun kept him focused until the rest of the guys arrived, almost twenty juniors like him and Tom keeping them all in line. Frank barely noticed his body falling into a parade rest as Tom and the ghost of Crusader stood in front of the crowd of men.

Tom started to step back, but the ghost held up a hand to stop him. Having heard firsthand how quiet the thing was, Frank wasn't surprised when it bent to whisper in Tom's ear instead of addressing them. He smugly held himself steady while the rest muttered amongst themselves.

"Men of the Empire!" Tom shouted, "In a moment you will follow me down below. Whatever you see there, you will not speak of it once you leave. Disobey and you will answer to Kaiser himself, Understood!"

It was all Frank could do to shout- "Yes!" -without surrounding the word in 'Sir's. His blood was up and he welcomed the next words.

"Follow my projection, do as you're told, and get ready to show some thieves what real justice looks like!"

There was no cheer, instead they rushed to cram themselves onto the elevator without shoving their guns into each others' guts, managing some semblance of order by the time the ghost hit the elevator button and they began to drop below the earth.

At first it didn't seem to weird, just deep...then he saw the door.

Frank had seen tinkertech before, in his last days in the army the stuff had just been starting to turn up here and there. This was definitely cape made. No real metal looked like this. When they passed into a tunnel made partly of the stuff, his respect for the Empire climbed another notch.

Those government weasels didn't have a clue. The Empire was building a base under the city and they didn't even know. What else was planned? How much did Kaiser have stockpiled and secured?

Following the ghost through a maze of tunnels, Frank wished that he didn't have to keep quiet about this place. If he could just show Dana this place he knew she'd understand. She's see why he'd thrown his lot in with the Empire. See that they weren't just some petty street gang out for power for the bosses.

Maybe in a few more years. With how long they'd been together he figured it would take at least that long for her to move on. He had plenty of time to show her the truth.

No matter where his thoughts went, Frank kept his trigger finger ready and his guard up. Which turned out to be pointless since they made it to an open door at the end of a long tunnel of perfectly formed metal, just in time for the morons running out in front to get swallowed by darkness.

The rest of them stumbled to a halt without getting more than the occasional arm and leg inside of it. Since the guys at the front pulled those limbs back unharmed, Frank figured it was just like a smoke screen. No vision meant they couldn't fire, but if they just waited for it to clear they'd have the scum right where they wanted them.

The ghost had vanished, but Tom was still there, glaring at anyone who lowered their gun or tried to lean against the pipes. Frank wasn't one of them, but he was starting to feel the burn in his arms and back when the darkness vanished in a gust of wind. An underground gust of wind. He knew every cape in the Empire and that could only mean Stormtiger.

Sure enough the cage fighter was standing right in front of the doorway, tattooed and muscled and not even wearing a mask. The air rippled past them as he growled and waved them into the room.

Frank got a glimpse of an overturned folding table, a couple of scattered chairs, and room that looked like some kind of futuristic lobby before the receptionist's desk was installed; Then the sound of gunfire wiped all that from his mind and he stepped up next to the guys firing -absently noting them as the ones who went on ahead and got swallowed by the darkness- and lined up on the door they were shooting at.

"Cease fire!" commanded a distorted voice. Frank had his finger off the trigger and his weapon across his chest before he even realised who it was. Krieg, the death's head cape himself. The Empire's contact with the rest of the movement. Dressed like an SS officer about to charge into a gas attack, the man looked fucking cool!

Behind him Frank saw Victor, wearing a long leather coat and black armour beneath it, a mask with a 'V' stamped on it covering his face, Crusader's real body, and Othala herself. Frank had a special admiration for the Empire's healer. The red-clad women had saved more than a few of the grunts he knew, not just using her powers for the other capes but even ground-pounders like him.

Seeing so many of his heroes, all gathered together, it was...it was...it was something. They looked just as amazing as he'd imagined from the glimpses he'd gotten of them, but watching Krieg pace back and forth while Victor messed with a bunch of wires beside the door they'd all been shooting at...they were weirdly normal.

Frank pushed away the treacherous thought. That kind of thinking was too close to disparaging them for his comfort. These were the people who fought for him and his, he owed them respect. So he stood straight and steady and waited for something to happen.

It turned out to be a long wait.

Well, really it couldn't have been more than a minute or two at most, but any soldier knew how long a wait could feel with adrenaline pumping through them. Eventually though, the door slid open, Victor quick-stepping back from it.

"Well done Victor!"

Victor shook his head smoothly, "It wasn't me. The kid must have done something from below."

"Even better," Krieg said, "That means they haven't reached him yet. Get down there and deal with our guests. I'll stay here in case they sneak back up."

Stormtiger rushed for the open door before he could say anything else, and the whole lot of them followed behind him. Crusader and Othala hung back, while Victor ran just a few steps behind Stormtiger. Through the door were stairs leading down and despite his drill sergeant's voice in the back of his head yelling at him, Frank took them two at a time and held his gun tight the whole way.

_'What did that black bastard know anyway?'_

Proving old Sarge to be full of shit, they made it to the bottom without a single weapon going off. Then Stormtiger turned and punched one of the boys full in the face with a scream of rage.

They all fell back from him, two guys dragging the poor bastard he'd knocked out cold. He kept coming towards them but Victor caught his hand when he pulled it back to swing again.

"Stop it." Snapped the leather clad man.

"The door's fucking closed!"

"I can see that, punching our own men isn't going to open it." He waved to Othala as she and Crusader came forward through the crowd of men, Frank finally getting into a position to see down the corridor at the bottom of the stairs and get a look at the tightly closed door at the end of it. He barely noticed the healer grabbing their unconscious man or the way he snapped awake a moment later.

Whatever was down here. Whatever they'd been guarding. The thieves had gotten to it. Frank couldn't blame the cage fighter for getting angry, they'd failed in the only job any of them had to do.

Shit.

"So what?" Crusader boomed cheerfully.

The other capes turned to him, but despite their obvious anger the big armoured man just chuckled and pointed to himself.

"We've got me. Storm just needs to tell me where they are and I'll send my boys-" He swept an arm out and a ghost appeared, drawing the spear from its back, "-in to get the kid free."

Victor held up a hand for a few moments, then nodded. "It's a good plan. Stormtiger, you know what to do."

Frank sure as fuck didn't know what he was doing, but he followed Tom's hand signals and got in position to fire on the door along with the rest of them. Othala stood halfway down the corridor beside Victor, both of them against the wall and out of the line of fire, while Crusader leaned against the wall opposite them. Then Stormtiger walked quickly to the door and pressed himself close to it.

It took a second for Frank to join the dots. Stormtiger was an aerokinetic, and sound was just vibrations and shit in the air. He had to be listening through the door, figuring out where the thieves were so Crusader could go through it and do whatever he was planning to do. Maybe use whatever was down here against them?

Crusader broke the silence after just a few seconds, "You done yet?"

"No!" Stormtiger turned and scowled at the armoured cape, "You want smell, I can do that easy, you want sound, that takes a minute."

Crusader started to speak again but Victor cut him off, "I'm sure quiet will help too."

More than a minute later, Stormtiger was still listening.

"What do you hear?" Victor asked, not sounding impatient despite the delay.

"...I don't know. It's weird, these doors are solid metal but the way the sound's distorted..." He turned away from the door, facing back towards them. "Hey don't the kid have that cann-"

_whaam_

Frank saw a flash of the door screeching along the floor towards them, Stormtiger wedged beneath it, and something looming in the ragged hole in the door, then the end of the corridor went black.

Tom screamed, "Fire!" and they emptied their guns into the darkness.

Frank remembered to aim high, and nobody was panicked enough to hit the capes to either side of them, but none of them could see where the bullets were going. The black didn't even ripple where they hit it, it just swallowed the lead and hung there. Until all of them clicked empty.

Practised fingers started loading another magazine without him thinking about it. Which was good, because when the black began to move towards them Frank was far too busy thinking about what the fuck was going on.

The gentle push towards them became a surge and the grunts around him dissolved into chaos. Everyone tried to get backwards, shoving and shouting until the whole crowd fell over with a chorus of pain. Standing at the front, still staring ahead, Frank was one of the few not sent sprawling.

Victor swept Othala into his arms and blurred ahead of the onrushing dark. The sight snapped Frank out of his daze and he began clambering over the fallen, helping up who he could, but prioritising speed. He couldn't help anyone if they got caught by whatever it was. Efficiency had him over the fallen, with half the guys in tow and ahead of Victor and Othala. Frank pushed them forward and screamed at them to reload while they ran, more than one magazine clattering to the floor as they tried to.

Behind them the darkness ate the rest, a few scrambling to their feet in time and one guy crawling forward with just his legs in the dark-

His eyes went wide and then his scream vanished into the dark along with him. He'd been pulled inside like he was tied to a truck. Frank screamed at his guys to go faster, the capes right beside them -and above them, he noticed Crusader being supported by a pair of ghosts- as they sprinted for the bottom of the stairs.

"Aah!" A woman shouted in surprise. Othala tumbling across the floor beside him as Victor -Frank glanced behind and saw- hit the floor looking like he was having a fit. A tear in the darkness revealed a massive silver eye, surrounded by fur that reminded him of the desert, looking out at them from the dark. Then the black shot forward again and Victor's cries turned into words.

"Go Othala! G-get out-t of here! Now!" He shouted, words broken up by the occasional spasm.

Othala was right beside Frank, staring back at the other man with wide eyes. She reached out for Victor, and Frank dared to grab her arm.

"Come on ma'am, we need to go!" He pulled her to her feet and took one last look back. What he saw made him glad he had.

Inches from the wall of black, Victor waited for it to come. Only before it reached him, Crusader dropped out of the air and grabbed him by the coat along with both his ghosts. Altogether they hurled the man down the corridor, sliding him along the floor to where Frank stood.

Grabbing Victor meant he had a clear view of Crusader being swallowed by the dark. One of his ghosts staying halfway out long enough for them all to see it wink out of existence.

The rest of the men were already at the end of the corridor, ready to fire back into the dark, but Frank refused to leave the man Crusader had saved. He pulled an arm over his shoulder and began dragging him. Immediately he knew that he wasn't strong enough, they'd never make it, but before he could second guess his actions a slender hand brushed his shoulder and the load lightened.

Together he and Othala dragged Victor's shaking body past the first of the men, who starting firing the second they were clear. Frank didn't look back to see what was happening focused on-

Victor stepped smoothly past them and it took a second of confusion for Frank to remember that the other cape was a healer. The black mask stared at him for a moment, then a leather gloved hand clapped him on the shoulder.

More screams cut the moment short. Again they were cut off and Frank turned to find the two guys who'd been shooting were gone, the black pouring out of the corridor like fog.

Victor's voice cut through the rising panic, "Men, with me! Get moving!"

Then the cape casually pulled a grenade out of his coat pocket, readied it, and hurled it into the dark. Frank didn't wait to see if it had any effect, and ran for the stairs with the rest of the men, realising a moment later that the capes were doing the same thing.

"Why are you running?!" Shouted a familiarly contemptible voice. Sure enough when he looked down the first flight of stairs, Frank saw Jacob standing at the bottom still, holding his gun loosely and smiling stupidly. "That was a grenade, like hell anyone survived that."

Darkness engulfed him and the bottom of the stairs before the moron could even scream. The rest of them went up as fast as they could, the dark rising like black water just a few feet below them. Frank was in the middle of the group, a few steps higher than the slowest when that man yelped and sprawled on the steps.

He began to scream, "My le-!" And was cut off.

Squeezing his eyes shut for an instant, Frank fought down the bile in his throat and kept going. His breath was getting harsher and harsher, but the top was just one more flight away and he couldn't let the darkness take him. He knew that above everything else. They couldn't let it take them.

As they climbed the last of the steps Victor blurred again, rushing past them and sliding to a stop inside the door and off to the side. Through the haze of panted breaths Frank remembered something about wires.

There was another scream but he didn't look back. They had just five and they had to stay ahead of the dark. Then the door began to close.

Victor blurred through the door and grabbed Othala. The two guys at the front of the group made it through easily, but the three of them at the back weren't so lucky. Frank sobbed out a breath, and grabbed blindly for one of the others, leaping and shoving with everything he had.

It took a moment of tumbling along the floor before he realised that they'd made it. Then a few ragged breaths before he remembered the third man. Turning slowly, already knowing what he'd see, Frank found two more shave headed soldiers, two capes, and firmly closed door.

There was no sound through it. No pounding. No noise at all. Just like the darkness had swallowed every noise that entered it. Which made sense, cause on the other side...

"Bitch's dogs must be a lot worse than anyone thought, but that won't help them get through this. We have until they figure it out, or convince our charge to open it. Krieg must have gone for help, but we can't assume they'll save us. Keep moving!" The last was barked as an order, and Frank was glad for it. He wasn't sure he would have been able to stop staring at the door for a request.

He checked his gun and followed the signals Victor gave. He filed in beside another guy he didn't know, the two of them in front of the capes, and looked back to see the other two soldiers falling in behind them. He didn't recognise them either.

Setting off into the less polished tunnels, Frank realised that Tom had been left down there somewhere. Only he couldn't remember when. Every time he tried to think back, Tom's face slid over every guy he had seen swallowed up. Had it been Tom on the stairs? Or at the end of the corridor? Had Tom been beside him when he picked a guy to yank to safety? Had he left a man he respected locked in with, with-

_'Snap out of it! Focus or you'll be joining him!'_

Frank forced himself to pay attention, looking around as they crossed through a large room -only the floors metal, with the rest bare rock and a bunch of cranes rigged against the roof, their beams keeping most of the stone above them in shadow- in what Frank guessed was a short cut. Ahead he could see a doorway and a tunnel that was at the wrong angle to see down it from the room. They had to be ahead of the thieves though, they'd moved quickly and Frank didn't see how anyone could know a faster route through this place.

Tapping his temporary partner on the shoulder, Frank slid around the next doorway with his weapon leading and-

Fur. An arm. A huge arm.

Then he was flying, the breath blasted out of him as he soared back into the room, hitting the ground with an explosion of pain in his back. Slender hands grabbed his arm in a death grip and warmth wiped out the pain but all he could think of was the screaming. His partner was screaming and this time it didn't cut off.

It was coming from past the doorway, around the bend of the tunnel, so he didn't understand how it could be so loud. Then there was a wet _crak_ and it got even louder, more animalistic, ragged and broken by sobs. Then it stopped, and Frank hated himself for how glad he was.

Victor pulled him to his feet, standing him at one corner of a rough triangle, with the other two guys at the corners and Victor and Othala in the middle.

"Honey," He said, like he was coaxing a scared animal, "I need you to focus, okay? You need to give us all invincibility. For as long as you can. I know it tires you out, but we're going to need it. You understand?"

The half-whispered, half-sobbed, "Yes." Made Frank want to cry. He held himself together though, reminding himself that the women poking his neck -and invincibility felt kinda like being a little numb all over- wasn't crying. She was keeping it together, a woman like Dana. He had to do at least as much.

Victor stepped past him, reaching behind himself and under that leather coat, pulling his hands out with a pair of the biggest handguns Frank had ever seen. The kind that usually screamed 'overcompensating' and broke a man's wrist if they fired it without a tripod. When Victor levelled one at the black creeping through the doorway they'd come in by, and fired it with a thunderous _booom_ and hardly a twitch of his shoulder, Frank realised just what invincibility meant.

For the first time, the darkness pulled back. Then there was a rattle of gunfire behind them and a subdued cheer. They must have driven back another of them.

The black crept forward again, Victor fired again, and again it pulled back. This time Frank put a few rounds in alongside him, enjoying the lack of recoil even if it threw off his aim. They could still win this. With the invincibility they could hold out and Othala would keep giving them more, surely she could last long enough.

A gasp. Just a little tiny gasp from behind them. Victor turned faster than him by a hair, and they both saw Othala wrapped in a long thick furry tendril, with the colours it almost looked like a fox tail. Then eyes flicked open along the length, varying in size from dinner plates to normal sized and every one of them looked right at them.

Victor's gun rose, and Othala vanished upward in an instant. Frank went to fire at the shape in the darkness, checking himself just in time as he remembered he might hit her as well. He opened his mouth to ask Victor what to do and realised that the cape had dropped to the floor in another fit of spasms and rigid limbs.

His head darted from side to side, finding the black creeping forward from the tunnel again, he let his gun hang by the strap and snatched up one of Victor's. Then, before he could fire a shot, he saw it.

A shape up above, in the shadows of the cranes. Almost human, but wrong, like an animal, like something from a movie, and so big that the shape struggling beside it seemed like a child. Then it leaned forward into a patch of light and-

Frank saw eyes, so many eyes, like its entire body was staring at him and smiling and laughing and then he couldn't- He couldn't. He sprinted for the first tunnel he saw that wasn't full of black and he didn't stop.

Every time he came to a turn he took it at random, not slowing a step. He barely noticed that he had one other man close at his heels. It didn't matter. All that mattered was getting away. If he could just get to the elevator. The surface. He'd go to his job and he'd never ever get involved with capes again. Just please, please! He just needed to get away!

Finally he recognised a junction, a sloping tunnel meeting two flat ones, and he made the turn that would lead to the elevator.

It was pitch black.

From ceiling to floor, there was nothing but the black. Waiting for them all along. Then it began to move closer.

He ran, rounding the intersection and running down a tunnel he'd never been in before. They hadn't taken this one on the way in, and when he looked forward Frank knew why immediately. Past the clanking pipes and rough stone floor, was a rusted metal door with an ageing chain and padlock securing it.

Grabbing the other guy, whatever his fucking name was, Frank tried to go back but the black was already there. Already blocking the way back, just inches away from his face. Then something moved inside it. No, something moved it, like it was smoke and being brushed aside by, by...

Bone, a great curving piece of bone. Just barely sticking out of the black fog, just enough for Frank to see the curve and stare up and up until he saw a gap in the bone, and within it a single eye, as big as his face. Like seeing it had flicked a switch, Frank could suddenly feel its presence in front of him. Something so big it filled the entire tunnel, and it was right there.

Wet warmth trickled down his leg. Then the black lapped over it and it was gone. Except...he knew it wasn't.

"Uwwaaaarrgh!" Frank roared and scrambled back, firing blindly into the darkness. The other guy followed suit and they both ran for the door while firing behind. The guns clicked empty and practised hands loaded his last magazine. Behind him there was the sound of someone falling against stone, and then nothing.

The door was right in front of him, just a few feet away and then he was there. He braced to put a bullet through the chain, and his finger went slack. Up close he could see a keyhole in the door too, and connecting door to frame. He'd never shoot through that much metal.

He pressed his back to the door and held down the trigger. Hosing the tunnel with bullets, blowing gushing holes in the pipes and kicking up stinging chips of stone. None of it stopped the dark from inching towards him. Then his gun clicked empty and all he could do was press himself tight to the door, the chain digging into his back.

The blackness was brushing his chest. He stared into it, into nothing, and he began to sob.

Something squeezed his chest until he couldn't breathe, and his world became darkness and pain.


	16. Bitch: 4

Rachel was dreaming. A beautiful, wonderful, perfect dream that she never ever wanted to wake up from. Where she was strong enough to protect her dogs, and she understood her friends, and they were her friends, she was finally sure that they were. She could see and smell and hear so many things, but it was nothing compared to seeing Lisa smile and knowing what it meant.

Usually she only remembered bits and pieces of dreams but if she woke up from this one, she'd give anything to at least remember it well.

Something slim and furry poked her in the side, and she turned to see Lisa looking concerned. The thinker smiled at her and crinkled her eyes in amusement, then a claw poked her in the fleshy vulnerability of her stomach, hard.

"Yelp!"

_'Ouch! Not a dream, not a fucking dream!'_

Growling in equal parts glee and annoyance, Rachel pounced. Lisa tried to scamper away but her ankle was snagged and the fox-girl was yanked into Rachel's arms. The bigger girl took full advantage of her size and the razor edged bone spurs that poked through her thick coat, gripping her relatively slender friend firmly and pinning her to the floor.

After a few seconds of half-hearted struggling, Lisa's tail beat her submission against the floor. A rapid_ thum-thump_ that made Rachel wince. She'd seen the eyes that covered Lisa's body, didn't it hurt to smack those against a stone floor?

She rolled away and offered a hand to help Lisa up, careful to keep her claws from slicing her friend's wrist open. Pulling her up was a good chance to look at what the combination of powers had done to the thinker, catching details that she'd missed in the chaos of the hunt.

While she remained shorter than Rachel, Lisa still towered over the skinheads slumped around Victor's trembling body, and she'd had no trouble manhandling the Empire healer now bound to one of the cranes. A full grown man would barely come up to her stomach, yet she managed to look slender and delicate, her body maintaining a human's general shape except for the legs and head. Her fur and her face screamed 'fox', but the lines of eyes that swirled and branched and spiralled across her body were something all her own.

They were mostly closed, only thin lines in her fur showing the patterns that started at the corner of her normal eyes, with just a few lazily blinking open at a time. Except for the normal ones and a large eye near the tip of her long -very long- fluffy tail. Lisa kept that one open continuously, tail waving gently from side to side as the Thinker looked behind herself.

She was worried.

Not about anything nearby, the feeling was too vague for an immediate threat. No, there was something scaring Lisa. Something that scared her even now. Every line of her body gave it away, now that Rachel could finally see.

Nuzzling at her palm distracted her, and Rachel turned her attention to her dogs. Lisa wouldn't tell her what she was scared of, so there was no point asking. Instead Rachel let herself enjoy being taller than her dogs even with them boosted to the limit. So big that they scraped the walls of the tunnels and she could still hold them almost like they were normal sized.

They were confused by it. Used to the caution she'd trained into them for when they were boosted, they hesitated to push against her with any real strength, and submitted easily when she stroked them. Not a big deal. They'd get used to it eventually, and she could still whistle and gesture their commands.

Her hands weren't as nimble as Lisa's, and only Brian had more bulk than her, but her fingers still felt quicker than they ever had before. Thick fur with the same auburn shade as her hair did nothing to hinder her movement, and the jagged blades of bone that covered the backs of her arms and legs just forced her to be careful. It was harder to remember that they continued up her back and neck as well; She'd gotten stuck while they'd chased the Empire up the stairs when one of the curling horns crowning her had gotten caught on a pipe.

By the time she'd gotten free of that stupid tinker metal, even Alec was ahead of her, and Lisa had gotten the door open before she got anywhere near it. If they hadn't waited for her before moving in to crush the Empire's last stand, Rachel would have been furious.

Idly scraping her foot along the floor, gouging long rents in the stone, Rachel patted Angelica as gently as she could and tried not to be bored. Brian had yelled at them to wait, and while Alec and Taylor had ignored him, that wouldn't make him any less angry with the two girls if they did the same.

Alec was smart enough to get back to them first. He could maybe pretend like he'd never followed Brian, except he was bouncing around like a puppy and there was no way Brian would believe him.

He looked like one of those weird desert wolves from somewhere. The ones people said ate kids, not that Rachel bought that story. They probably starved the poor things and then left the kids outside. People always pulled stupid shit and blamed it on the dogs.

Looking at Alec she definitely didn't believe it, there was no way a dog that cute could do anything bad without being pushed to it. Being just a foot taller than Lisa and constantly hopping from one foot to the other, it just completed the effect that the rest of him started. Instead of the monsters the rest of them looked like, Alec was just a big brown and sand-coloured puppy that had decided to grow hands and stand on its hind legs.

Except for the odd dish shaped horns that stood out behind his ears. Oh, and the static making all his fur stand on end, that was pretty fucking weird too. Looking closely, she almost thought she saw a few sparks arcing between hairs...

Nah, couldn't be. Anyway it was dumb to focus on details when Alec's happiness was so fucking happy looking. She wanted to laugh just looking at him, especially once Lisa snagged a ragged bundle of fabric from him and Rachel recognised the tinker's tech as the fox-girl started sorting through it. She'd thought they'd only stuffed their costumes into the make-shift bag.

_'They better not have ditched my coat to make room.'_

"Awwwwoooooooooo!" A howl of pure exultation echoed around them. It continued for several seconds before the source burst into the room, cradling one hand to his chest and dragging a pair of limp bodies with the other. His injured hand was still dripping blood, but the ragged hole that Victor's grenade had blown through his palm had gotten a lot smaller.

Rachel had seen Brian's worry and fear the moment Taylor transformed him. She'd found herself regretting some of what she'd thought about him, and very glad when the shift sent a bullet bouncing across the floor. Then she'd used her own power, and Rachel had seen the rage. Rage like she'd never thought someone so cold could have in him.

She'd thought she hated the Empire -she did hate the Empire- but when Brian had been pulling skinheads into his darkness she'd seen a, a savage passion for the violence. Enough of it that she'd almost worried he might kill someone. Enough that she'd almost been scared.

Almost.

Her boss was a pain in the ass, but he always had a plan and he always had control...and he did try to look out for them. He'd fucking leapt on a grenade for them a few minutes ago, without a shred of hesitation. That had been enough to reassure her. Enough for her to admit she might have been harsh on him before. Maybe.

The guys he was holding had five broken limbs between them, but the scumbags were still breathing just fine. Brian tossed them down with the others and snorted down at the pile of unconscious Nazis.

The Undersiders' leader was still hard to read. Thick plates of bone covered his body, only exposing the chocolate-coloured fur beneath in a few places. Even his tail was covered, about six feet of overlapping layers ending in a heavy spike, but even beneath all that armour she could see the way he forced himself still. So still that he shook. Then the animal joy was shoved down and he began snapping off orders.

"Woof! Awoof, bark!" He voiced disapprovingly. Not that the tone made the sounds understandable.

Rachel had no problem seeing the annoyance that swept over Brian as he realised that his mouth was the wrong shape to make words. Since the transformation hadn't granted them the power to talk to dogs, which Rachel would never ever admit she'd been hoping for, none of them could understand the orders. He grabbed his head with his good hand and snarled, annoyance starting to boil over into anger.

That was when Taylor scampered out into the room from the same tunnel Brian had used. All eyes turned to the last of their number as she skidded to a halt and looked back at them with dawning guilt. Her attention lingered on Brian and she sunk into a submissive posture, her form blending into the shadows in a way that made it hard to focus on her. She whined piteously, without a trace of the exuberance she'd had a few seconds earlier.

Then, right when Rachel was bracing to defend her, Brian surprised her again.

Instead of snarling at Taylor for disobeying, or grabbing her, or hitting her, or any of what Rachel had expected...he sagged with guilt of his own. He padded over to her far more softly than Rachel thought possible, and patted Taylor gently on the back. After a while, she stopped whining and stood up, cautiously optimistic and then outright relieved when his anger stayed gone.

Standing beside the stark bone that covered Brian, Taylor was more visible. Rachel estimated her at just a few feet shorter than Brian, if a lot more slender, but it was hard to judge her build beneath the sleek darkness that was her fur. Long dark hair that seemed black at a glance, but shifted colour when Rachel looked right at it. It was still dark enough to be near black, flowing subtly from grey to green to brown to blue until she found her focus had skated off into thin air over Taylor's shoulder. Which did make it easier to see the way her hair writhed and contorted in defiance of the still air, making it even harder to grasp her shape.

Brian stepped away from her and looked around at them all. Then he began making a strange circling motion in the air, before jabbing his hand at the middle of the circle.

When nobody moved, except for Lisa who was still sorting through the makeshift sack, Brian buried his head in his good hand and glared out at them from between his fingers. Rachel had no idea why, it wasn't their fault that they didn't know what he was...

Her thoughts trailed off sheepishly as she remembered him lecturing them on hand signals. Except she hadn't been paying attention, and neither had Alec, and Taylor hadn't been there. So it was kind of their fault they didn't understand.

After a little more grumbling, Brian perked up and began waving his hands again. This time he pointed to each of them in turn, then to himself and barked, "Ah! Ruff!" Then again, "Ah ruff!"

Realisation dawned on Rachel and when he repeated it a third time she could almost hear his voice, _"Here!"_

Then he poked a claw at each of his eyes and pointed at Alec, "Raow!" He did the same again, but pointed at the piled Empire grunts instead of Alec, _"Look!"_

It took a bunch more tries before they were all following the command to his satisfaction. Then, before Brian could come up with another one, Lisa mimicked him -_"Look!"_\- and waved her sack of loot at them. Once they were all focused on her she tossed a handful of parts on the ground and stomped on them, hard.

With that Lisa swept the bag up onto her shoulder and grinned a vulpine grin at them all.

"Victor! I have the tinker secure, he reports that the door to his lab is weakened. Reinforcements will be here soon so you must take care of the thieves immediately! Do you hear me? Victor!" Krieg's voice came from Victor's coat, so clear that Rachel would have sworn he was in the room with them. "Victor! What the hell is going on down there?!"

_"Here!"_ Brian called to them, then he turned and ran for the exit with a howl that they all understood the first time. _"Follow!"_

Rachel held back a moment, rousing her dogs and whistling for them to run behind her. Angelica needed a comforting rub to her side before she would do it, so Rachel was far behind the others when she slid into the tunnel.

Their scents sung to her nose that they'd run ahead. Rachel howled her acceptance of the challenge and leapt forward. Her hands caught the ground and her legs followed through into a four legged run that would have broken a human's fingers like toothpicks, her thundering pace eating the distance ahead of her.

Alec appeared as she skidded around a bend in the tunnel, loping along lazily at the back of the group and taking up most of the tunnel's width. Snorting happily, she jumped to the wall and propelled herself into a horizontal run. Her momentum didn't last long, but she was able to overtake him before gravity pulled her back to the floor.

Behind her there was a scuffle and she looked back to see her dogs crowded behind him. They shoved and nipped at his heels until finally Angelica tried to climb over him and Alec snarled and accelerated into a proper run. He was faster than she expected and Rachel yelped in surprise before increasing her own pace, barely staying ahead.

Running as fast as they could in the tight confines of the tunnels, frequently bumping and scarping against the sides, it didn't take them long to catch up to the others. Lisa was at the back of their trio, Taylor in the middle and Brian charging at the front. His bulk was slowing them down a little, and Rachel found herself having to slow down to avoid slamming into Lisa.

A heartbeat later, Alec landed on her back. Somehow he avoided impaling himself on her back spikes and managed to grip her shoulders around them, yipping in triumph from his new perch.

Bouncing a few feet into the air scraped him along the tunnel roof and put an end to that mischief.

Brian vanished into a room ahead of them, then Taylor, then Lisa, then Rachel saw the column of empty space and recognised the elevator shaft. They were almost out. Except that looking up she could see the elevator was up, blocking off most of the light along with their only way out.

_'Fucking Krieg.'_

skreeeee

Rachel slammed her hands over her sensitive ears and snarled at Brian when she realised what he'd done, scraping his claw-tip along the rusted metal walls. He cocked his head at her in amusement, then rammed his claws into the wall. They punched through the old metal like tissue paper.

_"Follow!"_ He howled. Leaping at the wall and digging in with all four limbs then starting to climb. The rest of them followed and Rachel knew her dogs had enough experience doing the same thing with brick and stone.

The elevator had seemed sturdy when they rode it down, holding her growing dogs easily. It buckled with Brian's first punch and tore by the fourth. He tore the hole wider and burst out onto the factory floor with a howled challenge.

Rachel followed, tense and ready to fight, but she met only the echoes of their battle cries and the dull sounds of the snoozing skinheads they'd left behind them...how long ago had it been? It couldn't have been more than an hour, but it felt like weeks, a lifetime, like a completely different girl had ridden Angelica into the stinking hall.

As she relaxed, Rachel became much more aware of the smell. It absolutely fucking stank, she'd had no idea how bad it was before. Her ears tried to distract her with the sounds of her friends' distress -Lisa sounded like she was gagging, about to vomit- but her enhanced nose refused to allow it.

Brian called to them and every member of the Undersiders rushed to follow him straight towards the wall. All of them trying to focus through the thick stench of rotting eggs. How the fuck did paper smell that bad to make?!

Rachel was confused when Brian started climbing the wall, until she glanced over to the way they'd first entered the factor floor and realised how much smaller the corridor looked now. It would be a horrible squeeze if they fit at all. So she called for her dogs and began to climb the wall too, tearing great rents in the cinderblocks that made up the wall.

Finally they reached the roof and all of them simply tore through the thin sheet metal, clambering out onto the top of the building. The roof dented alarmingly beneath Rachel's feet, but it looked to be able to hold their weight, barely.

In the open air again at last, Rachel threw her head back and basked in the wind that swept through her fur. The night was dark and cool, and the sea breeze diluted the smell with the scent of salt and deep water.

With her new nose, Rachel could pick through the sea smells like never before. It was like she figured putting on glasses must feel, like everything had been blurred together and now she could tell all the parts apart from each other. She had no idea what any of them were, but there they were.

Her eyes and ears were almost as awesome to take in the city with. The dark places, where streetlights were broken or cut off from power, or just hadn't been built, she could see a bunch from the roof and now she could actually see more than vague shapes in each spot. As for sound, she could hear the waves and the distant traffic and voices and much closer traffic...wait.

Rachel perked up, noticing that the others were doing the same. Alec was the first one to find where the sound of approaching vehicles was coming from, creeping up the roof on all fours and peering down the other side at a street with at least a dozen cars speeding down it. Towards the mill.

As if that wasn't enough Lisa growled and pointed to a lump of concrete hovering above the cars. At least three people on top of it, but Rachel couldn't make out details this far away.

It didn't matter, flying meant capes, definitely the telekinetic fuck and probably some heavy hitters. Looking at her friends Rachel knew they were in no mood for another fight. She turned to Brian to try and tell him ho they felt, and froze when she found him staring right at her.

He held her with his gaze, blinking slowly once, twice, then turning away. He glanced around, then pointed to where the warehouse roof they stood on transitioned to a flat office roof, and beyond it to the other side of the fence that enclosed the mill. Another office stood amongst the more common warehouses, it took Rachel a second to recognise it as the same building they'd watched the mill from earlier that night, and by then Brian was already accelerating into a run and howling at them to follow him.

Alec was right behind him with a howl of his own, and Taylor followed close at Alec's heels. Rachel noticed Lisa fumbling with the loot bag and offered up the spikes along her back for the fox girl to secure it to, then she pushed the other girl into a run and the two of them tried to catch up.

They'd just made it off the warehouse roof when Brian hurled himself out into the air ahead of them, soaring over the street and landing in a weirdly quiet roll on the office roof. Alec and Taylor followed easily, but Lisa was still hesitating, slowing down a little.

_'She thinks too much.'_

Rachel whistled to Judas and Brutus to hem her in, then she commanded them to follow her closely as she sprinted the last few steps, stomped down on the -already damaged- edge of the roof and leapt for the other side.

For a few endless seconds, Rachel flew.

Then she slammed into the office building and tumbled head over heels through the thin layer of darkness that sat above the gravel roof. As her vision cycled from sky to roof to sky to roof and back again, she caught a glimpse of her dogs landing easily on the roof and Lisa crashing chest-first into the edge and scrambling to pull herself up, whining and yelping all the while.

A wiggling arm was offered to her, dark and writhing.

She shook her head until her eyes started focusing again and grabbed Taylor's hand in her own. Her fingers were thicker, but Taylor's slender digits felt a bit longer. Also some of Taylor's fur was twining around her arm, slender hair exploring it like something Rachel had seen on a documentary about coral reefs. Weird.

Once she was on her feet the fur let her arm go easily, it was all thin and silky anyway, no chance of restraining anything. Shrugging, Rachel bent to gather the scattered contents of the bag she'd carried. Odd bits of machines and loose clothing. Lisa snatched up her belt with a huff when Rachel reached for it, the thinker grumpily taking over the task, rubbing at her chest and moaning the whole time.

Down below the Empire's convoy sped through the gates in the fence and screeched to a halt on the asphalt outside the mill. Rachel could just make out Krieg standing all stiff and military-like in front of the lead car.

Oh yeah, that was definitely Kaiser getting out of the car. She snorted and moved to get a closer look at the imminent humiliation, but a bone coated arm held her back. Brian growled quietly and pointed to the flying lump of concrete that was now close enough to make out Rune, Cricket and Abwehr on top of it, and it was getting closer.

Lisa was suddenly tense with worry, grabbing Taylor and Alec and pulling them with her as she made for the opposite side of the roof. She easily jumped the alley to the next building -a warehouse that smelt of processed leather and plastic- then turned to gesture frantically for them to follow her. They were all quick to follow the thinker.

Almost a block later, with another big jump looming ahead of them, they finally stopped and took another breather. Lisa took the opportunity to secure her burden properly on Brutus' back, and Alec cheerfully sat on the edge of the roof with his legs kicking at the air. Rachel settled for lying back and staring at the stars, calling her dogs (the ones not having things tied to their backs) over to lounge with her. She could see more stars then she'd ever been able to in a city before, but it still wasn't a patch on the views when she'd been travelling cross country with her dogs.

She could still hear traffic and distant voices and all kinds of noises that seemed to fade away. The night was peaceful and things were good. Better than she could remember them being, ever.

So of course that was when she heard a scream.

A woman's voice, loud and shrill. Annoying. Rachel sat up and looked around for something to cover her ears with until the noise stopped, and found that Taylor and Brian weren't on the roof any more.

Rachel threw herself to her feet, following Lisa's gaze to where they'd descended to the street and were sprinting for the alley where the screams were coming from. Alec shrugged and pushed himself out into the air, then Lisa jumped down after him; which just left her; up on the roof; alone.

Growling her annoyance, Rachel hurried after her friends, her dogs close behind.

By the time she made it to the alley the noise had stopped. Not just stopped, cut off completely in the middle of a scream. Sure enough she grabbed the corner and pulled herself around to find a chest high -on her- wall of black fog, which made it well over head height for anyone she'd ever met.

She waded through the darkness towards where Taylor and Brian were holding two limp people, with Alec and Lisa crowding around them. As she got closer Rachel could see that one of them was a well-dressed woman -snoozing the dead sleep of someone who'd passed out- in the crook of Taylor's arm, and the other was a guy with Empire tattoos and dislocated arms dangling from Brian's grip. She pushed between Alec and Brian and got a better look, sniffing at the bloody gash along his cheek and snorting a laugh when she realised his jaw was broken.

Beeping from Taylor was enough for Rachel to lose interest in the man even before Brian dropped him to the alley floor. Her friend had gotten the woman's phone out of her pocket and was holding it on the palm of her hand while she used her pinky to tap out a number on the screen. Eventually she got the right three numbers and they all leant in as the dispatcher said, "911, what is your emergency?"

Taylor looked around at the rest of them, getting equally helpless looks back.

"Hello? Are you able to talk?"

"Rowr?" Taylor attempted.

The dispatcher didn't like it. "Was that a dog? If this is a prank call then you should know that I am tracing this number and you'll be in serious trouble when the police get to you."

Before they could flail around any more, Alec leant in close to the phone and winked at the rest of them. Then he opened his mouth and screamed like a little girl.

Okay, maybe a little girl with a very deep voice and a throat injury, but Rachel was still impressed. The dispatcher said, "Hold on ma'am, I'm sending police to your location right now." Then they kept on talking, asking questions that Rachel paid no attention to. Taylor gently put the woman down and tipped the phone from her palm onto her stomach, and they could finally leave.

It wasn't fair, she'd been too late to do anything more interesting than staring at the aftermath. As they clambered up the fire escapes, Brian cancelling his darkness beneath them, Rachel got more and more annoyed that she'd missed the interesting part.

Then she smelt something among the urban smells that she recognised. Something tangy and chemical and nasty: Something that could only mean one thing.

Whistling at her dogs to stay with the others, Rachel leapt up to the roof ahead of them and immediately shot off towards the smell. She dropped to all fours for maximum speed and ignored the questioning sounds the others were making far behind her. They'd understand in just another minute or two.

Reaching her target, Rachel dropped into another alleyway and dug her claws into the wall to slow her fall. She lost just enough speed that, when she landed behind the dealer lurking in the shadows below, the woman wasn't sent stumbling by the impact. Instead she turned slowly, reaching for a gun in her waistband and shrieking at the top of her lungs when Rachel engulfed her head with one hand and picked her up.

She considered the dirty woman kicking and screaming in her grasp. Looked like another of the Empire's, with that dumb half-way shaved hair they liked. The dealer got her gun out while Rachel was wondering what to do with her, and she emptied the stubby revolver into Rachel's side. Which really fucking hurt!

Barely remembering to pull the punch, Rachel swung the side of her other hand into the dealer's gut and dropped her to ground where she started retching and trying to curl into a ball. Looking down at her gave Rachel a feral rush of satisfaction, of superiority. Enough not to care that it felt like a swarm of bees had stung her.

She began to think of all the other gang fucks out there. The ones who stood on corners and in alleys, sneering at her when she walked her dogs. The ones she'd always had to ignore.

Feeling along her side, Rachel found the bullet holes beneath the fur just as her side cramped painfully and the lumps of metal she could feel just under her skin were slowly squeezed out. By the time that questioning barks demanded her attention from above, one bullet had already popped out of her side and bounced along the ground. Barely a minute to heal it.

She climbed back up and kept ignoring them, instead grabbing Brian's hand and looking at it. The fur hadn't grown back yet, leaving a pink patch of shiny skin in the middle of his palm, but that was it. A half hour to go from a hole blown right through his hand, to no real damage.

Rachel tossed her head back and howled to the sky. Letting every last one of the fucks know what had begun. Then she grabbed her friends, all of them still confused, and pulled at them until they followed her. She could already smell another one.

The hunt was on.

The second dealer was brought down by Alec. He leapt across a road while the rest of them were climbed down to cross the dark street, and was already crawling down a wall above the oblivious shithead when they caught up. This time it was a merchant, filthy, stinking of old food and fresh piss. He'd stood there tapping at his phone while they looked on and Alec clung to the wall above him.

Alec had stared at him, really stared, like he was trying to see through him, and the dish shaped bones behind his ears had split and spread out while his fur almost crackled with static. The merchant fell to the ground in a fit, hurling his phone at the wall and bashing his legs on the dumpster he'd been leaning on. Shaking and puking while Alec cackled above him.

After him they'd come across a pimp kicking the shit out of some guy, shoving him to the curb and raising a leg to stomp on him. Lisa caught him with her tail and yanked him up to where she clung to the frame of a shattered window. His eyes were covered and his arms held tight to his chest, but Lisa just held him there and opened every eye that faced him. They'd all watched as she examined the struggling man for nearly half a minute, then she'd suddenly jabbed him with her taser. The device held delicately between two claws.

Then it had been a pair of muggers.

Then another dealer, ABB this time.

Then they'd found a few guys with Empire tattoos stumbling out the back of a bar.

Then a merchant stuffing guns into his trunk.

The hunt led them from one side of the city to the other. Slowly gaining confidence until they bounded from roof to roof almost half as well as her dogs did. Racing each other to find the next prey, then gathering to crush it.

By the time Rachel started to feel weird, they'd gotten more than a dozen of them. Enough that she was imagining an old dream when she stumbled and nearly pitched off a roof. Her suddenly numb leg snapped her out of the daydreams of shelters and her own territory, and just as suddenly she could feel it again...but it felt just a little slower.

_'But I'm still feeding my power to us.'_ Sure she was starting to get tired, but not nearly as quickly as she normally would with this much use, it couldn't be her power... _'Fuck.'_

She saw the same realisation in Lisa, and the two of them hurried to corral the others. Pointing to Taylor and trying to explain with growls and waving. That they were running out of time.

_'Lisa said it lasts a few hours before they turn back.'_

By the time they made it back to the loft it had been at least two hours since they transformed, probably closer to three. All of them had been shaking and stumbling. Barely able to stay up on the roofs and out of sight. Finally they'd piled onto their lair's roof -which immediately creaked alarmingly- and resorted to ripping up a strip of the metal to let themselves in.

Alec was the first one through, flopping through and falling all the way to the ground floor with a huge _thump_. Once he waved that he was still alive, the rest of them followed more carefully. Only once they'd all gotten to the floor did Rachel hit the mental switch that reversed her power. Pulling it out of them all as fast as she could, thinking of the times she'd had to cut a dog out of the meat suits her power gave them, of being trapped like that with no one to help her. To help any of them.

Flesh sloughed off them all, already drying and shrivelling as it fell to the ground. With it went the strength, and the senses, and all the energy that had kept her going. Rachel collapsed into a pile of rapidly decaying bones and meat, passed out before she hit the ground.

* * *

Something tugged her upright. Her legs didn't want to hold her weight but they held her up until she managed to stumble forward. Looking to the side she got a glimpse of really dark hair, then her eyelids rebelled and slammed shut.

There were stairs, cold metal beneath her feet, and what felt like a towel rubbing at her. Then she toppled onto something soft and there was warmth and a pair of voices saying...something...

Rachel passed out again-

* * *

-and jerked awake an instant later in the bright light of morning.

Rachel found herself lying on one of the couches, feeling like she'd been woken up three days too early. After trying to drink a desert while someone pounded her head with a rock.

There was a blanket over her, the same worn patchwork that she always slept under, and Angelica was curled up on her feet. Brutus and Judas were lying on the floor beside the couch, there was a pillow beneath her head and -Rachel yawned and began to close her eyes- she was butt naked under the blanket.

Half asleep, Rachel turned her head at the sound of a squeak of...of...she didn't know what it meant. Hadn't she been fixed? It was too hard to think any more about it, instead she stared at Taylor as the girl sat up on another couch, clutching her own blanket and blushing bright red. Then she shifted a little and Rachel realised she was embarrassed. At being naked? Weird.

Taylor dashed for the corridor that led to their rooms, disappearing into her own by the time Rachel rolled her head to look that way.

_'Hey, Alec hasn't drawn a picture on her door yet. That's...something...'_

...

Taylor's door opened...a few seconds later? Hours? Whatever.

She was dressed in a t-shirt and sweatpants, and she froze like a squirrel in front of Brutus when Brian's door opened and he stepped out of it just a few feet from her.

They stared at each other, neither of them talking. Through the haze of sleep Rachel remembered the last time she'd seen them both in the loft, the way Brian had talked to her friend. Made her feel bad. She'd kick his ass if he-

"I'm sorry!" They both blurted out. Making Rachel cock her head to the side. That wasn't what she'd expected to happen. Neither was them standing and staring at each other some more.

Eventually Brian said, "Hey, thanks for helping me get everyone bedded down."

Taylor laughed awkwardly, forcing it, "I'm just glad I didn't have to see Alec in the buff." Her laughter trailed off into more silence, then she bounced on the balls of her feet a few times and stepped forward. "You were right."

Brian took two steps back. "Huh?"

"You were right." Taylor repeated. "You were worried that I'd do something stupid, or I'd lose control, and I thought you were being an asshole but...I got you shot, and I completely forgot my power had a time limit and...I'm sorry."

She started to step away, but Brian caught her by the upper arm and said, "No, I, I mean, you..." He let go and jerked his head towards the stairs down from the loft. "You, uh, you fought Shadow Stalker right?"

Taylor stiffened, but managed to nod.

"How'd you like to beat the crap out of her next time?" Brian said with bared teeth, which was weird because Taylor went red and nodded instead of flinching away.

As the two of them walked past the couches, Rachel decided it was all too confusing for her and let sleep pull her down again.

* * *

This time Rachel woke up slowly, and after staggering over to the kitchen and sticking her mouth under the tap for a solid minute, she felt just awake enough that she'd never be able to get back to sleep. Even if her head still felt stuffy.

She shivered and remembered that she wasn't wearing anything. There was a cold breeze in the loft, coming from the strip of metal that looked to have been torn away from the rest of the roof. It was in roughly the right place, but the gap at the edge was rattling slightly with the wind.

Shivering again, Rachel went in search of clothes and found the loot bag from last night sat on top of their planning table. It looked a hell of a lot bigger now, big enough that she had to practically crawl inside it to get her coat and jeans. Only after she'd yanked them on did she think to look around for the rest of her team, her friends.

Her dogs were still sleeping where she'd spent the night, too tired to wake up with her. Lisa and Alec were sprawled on the rest of the comfy seats, also covered in blankets. Neither of them looked like they'd wake up any time soon, but now she was paying attention Rachel could hear the occasional grunt drifting up from the ground floor.

She wandered over to the stairs that lead down from the loft, flinching when she first stepped onto the cold metal of the steps. With a mental shove, she walked halfway down the stairs -far enough to see the abandoned machines on the ground floor- and sat down heavily.

_'What the...?'_

A square space about a dozen feet long on each side had been cleared. The heavy machines somehow shoved aside and the old floorboards swept and covered with pieces of old carpet. On top of which her leader and her friend were fighting.

Except she could understand both of them, and they weren't really fighting.

From what Rachel could see around her clothes Taylor still had normal skin at her neck and elbows, but from the elbow down it was fur and claws and she had wolf ears nestled in her hair. She lashed out with her claws and a dark hand caught her arm then twisted into a throw. She was tossed into the air and landed in a roll that ended in a crouch. Instead of pursuing, Brian looked at her with satisfaction and nodded approvingly.

The shirtless leader of the Undersiders was lightly coated in fur, the same dark-chocolate colour as his skin. His claws were shorter than Taylor's, but his hands were looked even bigger, out of proportion with the rest of him. Looking again, Rachel realised how strange that was, since he'd gotten bigger and taller than the last time she saw him, plus there were inhuman ears sticking up out of the side of his head too.

He held up a hand and worked his jaw for a minute, then said, "I like this one, but I feel kind of clumsy. Can you give me smaller hands?"

Taylor smiled and nodded, walking up and putting a hand on his bare arm. She squeezed a little, then his hands twisted and shrunk until they looked more normal. "That better?"

He flexed his fingers a few times, then threw a rapid series of punches at the air, "Yeah, this is good. Now let me show you that again, your rolls are really good for a beginner but you need to follow through more. If you get right to your feet you'll be able to dodge most follow ups."

Rachel settled in on the stairs, watching as Brian showed Taylor how to throw him, then demonstrated the roll every time she practised it on him. They slowly worked through several throws and grabs, with Brian occasionally stopping Taylor and asking for a tweak to the form she'd given him.

After a while, she heard Alec and Lisa stirring up above. Lisa saying good morning to Alec. Alec saying hi to Lisa. A rustle of blankets and then a shriek of horror from Lisa. Feet pounded on floorboards, then metal, then a door opened and slammed. All while Lisa screamed about horror and being struck blind, and Alec laughed.

Rachel cocked her head, then turned her attention back to the ground floor. Unfortunately they looked to be finished. She'd enjoyed watching them train, being able to understand what they were saying and feeling made it just like watching her dogs playing.

Brian picked up a pair of towels and tossed one to Taylor while using the other himself. Then he looked down, biting his lip, he was working up his courage to do something.

"Taylor." She turned at the sound of her name, meeting his gaze as he brought his head up, "You were right, I was being an asshole." He held up a hand to interrupt when Taylor started to talk, continuing, "I know that I said I was worried about you losing control, but I lost control down there too, and getting shot was only a problem because I didn't just ask you to heal me on the stairs. I..."

He looked away again, clenching his fists and speaking in a quieter voice, one Rachel had to strain to hear, "When you first got here, you reminded me of someone. Someone I have to protect. That was easy, it was easy to see you that way, as someone to protect. Only then you started to act on your own and suggest things and do things and...and be your own person. Which fucking terrifies me when my little sister does it, because she's just a kid and she's my responsibility, but that's got nothing to do with you..." He trailed off. He looked lost, and scared, and lonely.

Taylor crossed the gap between them and reached out, hesitating halfway, then awkwardly finishing with a pat on the shoulder.

Somehow it snapped him out of it, and Brian managed to look at her. Then he shook his head and finished, "You're not my little sister Taylor, and I was a ridiculous asshole to treat you like you were, just because you were beat up when you came here. You don't need protecting any more than anyone else on this team."

Taylor clutched her hands to her chest, looking up at him with enough hope that Rachel ached just to look at her. Brian looked back with a grin that made him look a lot younger, all the responsibility falling away.

"I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm sorry. And it's kind of a formality, but if you still want to join...the Undersiders would love to have you."

Brian extended a hand for her to shake, Taylor looking back and forth between it and his face. Like she wasn't sure if he was kidding or not.

Looking down at the two of them, Rachel was sure of one thing. The hug definitely caught him by surprise.


	17. Bitch: 5

Rachel lounged on the couch and wondered if she should take it instead of her bed.

Waking up had been a lot more comfortable than she was used to, and after spending another hour sprawled across the furniture listening to her dogs snoring, her back still wasn't stiff and sore. Maybe the others hadn't been fucking with her way back when they told her how much a bed and stuff cost?

Whatever. It was too late to ask them-

_'No. That's wrong.'_ She forced herself to stop the thought. To remind herself that she knew better now. Lisa really did want to be friends, she'd seen that when they were hunting together.

_'If I ask her about getting a mattress without broken springs...she'll...'_

Lisa wouldn't think she was stupid. She wouldn't try to trick her. She wouldn't.

Would she?

Rachel buried her face in the back of the couch and grabbed a cushion, slamming it down on her head to block out the world. She was left in darkness and warmth, her heart pounding in her ears and her nose scrunched against the fabric. Alone with the fear.

What if?

What if she was wrong? What if she wasn't remembering it right? What if things had already changed?

The thoughts wouldn't leave her alone, circling her mind and biting down again and again.

"Raargh!" Rachel shouted, bolting upright and waking her dogs in an explosion of barking. They scrambled to crowd around her, nuzzling and bumping against her, trying to calm her down.

Angelica's tongue rasped across her fingers, and Rachel shoved it all aside. Her dogs were hungry, that was more important than stupid pointless thoughts.

The loft was quiet. Nobody bothered her as she went about her morning routine in the light of the early afternoon: Dragging out the big plastic tub of food from the cupboard in the kitchen; grabbing tins and rinsing the tin opener; measuring the right portions for all three of them; and refreshing their water while they pounced on the food.

Only when it was done did she look up and think of just how quiet it was. Nobody trying to get around her in the kitchen, not a trace of Alec by the TVs. She could just barely hear some dumb sappy music coming from one of the rooms -poking her head into corridor left her pretty sure it was Lisa's- but that was it.

_'Where'd they go? Did I-?'_ She shook her head furiously. Violently forcing the old fear from her head. That woman was dead and gone and it didn't matter if she broke one of her fucking rules any more. It didn't matter if she broke anyone's rules. It didn't matter what anyone thought of her and she didn't care...she just didn't care.

_'I don't care!'_

Rachel repeated it over and over in her head, then when that didn't work she began to mutter it to herself. Then she snorted angrily and stomped down the bedroom corridor until she got to Lisa's room, where she clenched her fists, put her shoulder to the door and rammed it open.

At that second, staring at Lisa as the smaller girl scrambled for something on her desk, Rachel realised she had no idea what she was doing. Had she wanted reassurance, or retribution? Either way, what the hell did she want it for?

With another growl Rachel turned to leave, not realising Lisa had grabbed her arm until she almost pulled the blonde off her feet. While Lisa caught her balance, Rachel stared at the hand squeezing so tightly around her bicep. She thought of breaking Lisa's fingers but...she didn't really want to.

"Hey, uh, Rachel? You want to talk?" Lisa said. She bared her teeth for a moment, then jolted and pressed her lips together. Did that mean she was angry? Was she laughing and trying to hide it?

Lisa stepped closer while she was thinking. Before she could react, Lisa reached up and gently wrapped her arms around Rachel's shoulders, enveloping her in the smell of raspberries and sweat. Soft, warm, pressure drove the tension from her shoulders, and Rachel slumped against her friend.

Even with her shitty human nose, Rachel could remember the scent of the packmate she'd run with last night. She could recognise her friend by that much. Rachel closed her eyes and returned the hug, squeezing Lisa tightly and refusing to let her go.

At least, not until the slender blonde began to squirm and push against her.

Stepping back and blowing hair out of her face, Lisa looked at her with the same confusing mess of expression and posture. She said, "It's me Rachel, you know me. I'm...we're...friends."

Before she could get her bearings again, Lisa had grabbed her hand and was pulling her into the messy explosion of colour that she called a room, leaving the door to swing open. Dimly Rachel registered that it was the first time she'd been into any room but her own.

It definitely smelt like Lisa. The scattered clothes and dresser full of make-up stuff were dumb, but pretty much what she'd expected. The scattered pieces of a bunch of locks and a half-assembled gun, those were more of a surprise. Things that made sense when she thought about them, but which she hadn't really thought of Lisa with.

The bed was the only place to sit, and Lisa didn't stop her when she plunked herself down on it, so Rachel figured that was okay. Then she sat and tried to figure out what she had to say. Despite getting rid of the nagging thoughts, Rachel still felt like she wanted to stick around the other girl. Finally, she started to figure out why.

Lisa waited in silence until she spoke, "...You see things, with your power. Right?"

The blonde nodded, but didn't reply. Obviously Lisa knew she had more to say, like she was easy to read, like the whole talking thing was easy and she was just too stupid to-

"I know you're not stupid Rachel." Lisa interrupted her thoughts, "You might be blunt and violent and hard to deal with sometimes, but I've never thought you were stupid."

Was it a lie? The truth? How could she know without Taylor's help?

Again Lisa practically read her mind, "If you want me to say it again when Taylor and the others get back, then I will." Lisa lay back until her head bumped softly into the wall, "But, how about we make a deal? How about I promise not to lie to you, and you see if you can trust me?"

"That's stupid." Rachel blurted out. Immediately she wished she'd said something else, except that it was true. "How could I?"

Lisa blinked at her, then pushed out her lower lip, "Because you're like me. Not all the time, and not as much, but you can see through people too." There was a pause, "With Taylor's help."

Rachel stopped and thought back, to last night and what it had been like to watch her friends. Seeing all the feelings that they were trying to hide. Knowing them through and through, just like she'd always known her dogs.

"Is-" Rachel hesitated, remembering what she'd seen in Lisa before, then pushing ahead anyway. "Is that what it's like for you? All the time?"

"Pretty much." Lisa sighed. "I get more, I know that much, and then I get the stupid headaches to go with it. Still...I think we have it in common. I guess I'm happy to have someone I can talk to about it." The bed rose and fell as Lisa heaved herself upright and looked around the room. "You'll see through me if I try to lie, and I can see through you if you try to hide something. Don't you think it would be nice to be honest with each other about things?"

_'Would it?'_ Rachel wasn't sure.

She wasn't stupid. She knew that assuming the worst of people's intentions meant she had to be wrong about them sometimes. Not everyone was lying and trying to trick her all the time. It was worth it though, just to make sure she wasn't caught out by the real lies...and it also made it easier to deal with those lies. Since she was never sure that that's what they were.

It kept people at a distance, even her team, but that was comfortable.

If she let Lisa closer, what the hell would it be like if the sneaky blonde actually managed to trick her? Just thinking about it made her feel stupid and angry and...and she wasn't that weak.

_ptui_

Rachel spat into her hand and shoved it out to the side without looking. Then -after a long pause that made her gut ache- a smaller hand pressed into hers and they shook on it. A deal had been struck.

If Lisa ever broke it, Rachel resolved to break her arms.

Oblivious to her thoughts, Lisa asked, "So, what are you getting from Ale-?" A ringtone cut her off.

Lisa groaned and grabbed her pillow. Rachel cocked her head as the thinker balled a fist and punched the pillow over and over again. Then she hurled it across the room and flicked the phone open, putting it to her ear.

"I've been waiting for your call."

Unsure what to do, Rachel settled in to watch as Angelica padded into the room. She reached down and tangled her fingers in the dog's fur while Lisa nodded along with whatever was being said on the phone.

"Yeah, yeah, I figured it had to be that. There's no way that you'd just send us into a trap."

What? The fuck!? Was that the boss she was talking to?

"Difficulty? No, it wasn't difficult at all. Of course we've pissed off the Empire pretty thoroughly."

A short pause this time.

"We found where the Empire were hiding their new tinker, yes a tinker, specialised in transmuting materials into other materials, building things on a large scale."

Lisa rolled her eyes.

"Very well guarded, but we managed to fight our way out. We even nabbed some of his tech. I'm sure you're interested in that."

Angelica whined and Rachel rushed to scratch her in the right way to calm her down.

"Double our pay for the job, and next time you'd better check your intel before you send us in."

Without warning, Lisa reached out and grabbed her hand. Not gently either, her grip was tight enough to hurt.

"...No. No you listen, Thomas. You nearly got all of us killed because you didn't bother to double check your sources! Now I know you went to your sources in the Empire before you called me, and I know how little they'll have been able to tell you. You don't know shit about what happened last night, but let me tell you what's going to happen from now on."

Even Rachel heard the tinny yell from the phone, but Lisa talked right over it.

"We are now a hands off team. No more meetings, no more demands. You keep up the pay and we give your jobs priority, but if you think we're blindly following your orders after this then you've lost your mind."

Whatever the boss was saying, Lisa's hand went limp and she pulled away. Then she looked Rachel dead in the eyes.

"Why don't you ask them yourself? We can start with Bitch."

Lisa handed her the phone and, did something with her eyebrows, Rachel didn't get it.

However, she definitely got what Lisa wanted her to do. She was asking for back up. The boss was trying to screw them, and Lisa wanted a better deal. Like a pack of dogs fighting something bigger then them, the chances were best if they stuck together, but Lisa had never told any of them much about the boss. Rachel's gut twisted as she wondered if Lisa was trusting her, or trying to manipulate her. Either way the phone was in the air between them and she had to decide.

So Rachel closed her eyes, inhaled fruity shampoo and sweaty sheets, and took the phone.

She didn't give the boss a chance to speak, "You screwed up. You're lucky we don't fuck you up for it. Take the deal, or we will."

_'Brian's gonna kill us if he finds out about this.'_

"Rachel Lindt." The voice was fucking slimy, like it was trying to crawl down her ear. "Are you threatening me?" There was a warning there, even she knew that.

Of course, she didn't care. "Yeah."

"...Hm." The little noise made her want to strangle the fucker, "Could you pass the phone back to Tattletale please."

Lisa took it and twirled the phone through her fingers before returning it to her ear.

"I think you can guess what the others think, given what she said."

She nodded, then gave Rachel a thumbs up. They'd won.

"Of course, it'll be in the usual place by tomorrow morning."

There was a bit more nodding, then Lisa hung up. She tossed the phone onto the bed and turned to Rachel.

"Hey, can I give you another hug?"

The silence dragged on as Rachel considered what had just happened, what they'd just done. Finally she reached a decision and nodded decisively before letting loose with a sharp whistle.

Angelica perked up, and Brutus and Judas dashed from the kitchen to Lisa's room with a clatter of claws on metal. Rachel grabbed Lisa's hand and placed it gently on Angelica's head.

"Help me groom them."

She didn't wait for a reply. Walking quickly to her own room to grab the brushes they'd need, Rachel refused to worry about Lisa refusing. They had a deal.

* * *

It was almost an hour of peaceful brushing later when voices echoed up from the factory floor.

Both girls rose from the couch and armchair where they'd been nestled, dogs spilling to the floor around them.

Rachel was the first to the edge of the loft, looking down to see Alec, Brian, and Taylor carrying a bunch of building supplies between them. All of them were transformed, though there were no ears or tails or anything. Also, Taylor's hair was the wrong colour.

"Nice wig!" Lisa called down, getting the attention of the three below. Taylor waved up and Brian raised a hand in greeting. Alec cheerfully flipped them off and ducked out from beneath the bundle of planks he'd been helping to carry.

"Well I have like a dozen RPGs to try out, you two have fun with your DIY."

Then he was scampering up the stairs, brimming with anticipation. Rachel watched him, amused, as he vaulted the couch and began messing with the consoles below the TV. He really was just like a big puppy.

Ignoring the conversation between Lisa and the others -she was vaguely aware of Lisa trying to avoid some kind of work- Rachel wandered over to the couch and got back to grooming Judas. The beeping and shit that was coming from the speakers was annoying, but watching Alec bounce was funny enough to make up for it.

She stayed like that through the afternoon. Only getting up once, to grab some food and have a look at Taylor, Lisa and Brian's progress fixing the roof. They'd decided halfway through to turn it into a massive trapdoor, Rachel couldn't tell if they were doing well but they hadn't made any more holes in the roof at least.

With the chill that was blowing in (less and less as the work progressed) through the roof, Alec and her both grabbed blankets as the day went on. Rachel hugged Brutus and tried to figure out what the hell was going on in his game. Not that she cared, but it was weird to see Alec reacting so much when she didn't know what he was reacting too.

She'd almost gotten it figured out when one of the characters got stabbed and Alec freaked out. The others couldn't see, she didn't think he even realised she was watching as he began to cry. He wasn't faking it, and as she watched -shocked- he went from sad to completely distraught. Rachel began to get up, except that just meant he noticed her and ran for his room, chest heaving with his sobs.

_'What the hell?'_

* * *

Rachel had spent another hour trying to figure out what she should do about Alec, only for him to emerge from his room as unreadable as ever and yell up to the three on the roof, "Hey! It's run out! And I'm bored, let's go do something!"

So they'd come down and there'd been some talking that Rachel had ignored, since she never went out with the others she figured it would be a nice quiet night with her dogs. Then Lisa had appeared behind her and Taylor had been in front of her and the thinker had both been happy and mischievous and then she'd been sat down in front of a mirror in Lisa's room. Taylor and her both squeezed onto the padded stool while Lisa darted around, grabbing hair and picking up little bottles of stuff that made Rachel's nose ache.

"Okay, so Taylor can be disguised with a nice wig and some cheek pads, but you're a little trickier Rachel."

Spotting a break in Lisa's rhythm, Rachel struck, "Why do I need a disguise?"

"Don't you want to come with us?" Lisa asked, radiating hope and a rising hint of loneliness that made it impossible for Rachel to say anything. Especially with the tail Lisa was sporting, all fluffy and emotive as it curled around her. Defeated, she sagged in place and let Lisa do as she liked.

At least, until she actually got a taste of what all the unfamiliar words meant.

The stuff Lisa massaged into her hair felt oily and stiff. The powder that was dusted across her face made her want to sneeze, and the weird mouthguard thing that made her jaw protrude slightly, well that just fucking hurt to wear.

Rachel spat it out and began rubbing off all the crap painted onto her. There was a gasp when Lisa noticed, and the blonde whirled away from her work on Taylor with genuine anger.

"Hey! I worked hard on all that!"

Rachel snapped back, "I'm not fucking wearing it."

"You need a disguise Rachel." Lisa sighed.

"Only if I go with you guys." She regretting saying it as soon as the words were out. Lisa stepped back like she'd been slapped. The fluffy tail went stiff and Rachel felt like she'd just stepped on one of her dogs. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed the mirror and, as much as it felt too stiff, she had to admit that the spiked hair looked pretty cool. Maybe she could handle that part.

Still, she'd never last if she had to wear the rest of it. Hurting Lisa's feelings wasn't as bad as outing her as Tattletale.

The thinker looked at her, hurt already fading into defensiveness, and Rachel remembered she wasn't the only one who could read people. "You want to come with us Rachel. That means letting me disguise you. It's not that bad."

"No, it's bad. This stuff stinks."

"That 'stuff' is expensive and smells lovely. Now sit still."

"Um."

"I'm not doing it. Figure something else out."

"Like what? Dressing you in a Halloween costume?"

"Uh, hey. Guys."

"Yeah, why can't we do that?"

"Because it's not October! Stop whining!"

"I'm not fucking whi-"

"Hey!" Taylor shouted over them both. The normally quiet girl was red-faced and definitely a little mad at being ignored. Rachel and Lisa both went quiet as she glared at them. Fortunately the anger softened quickly.

Taylor held out her hand to Rachel and asked quietly, "Isn't there another option?"

She was running to her room an instant later. Her bed was wedged in the corner furthest from the door, but Rachel paid no attention to the lumpy thing. Instead she went for the battered dresser beside it, then yanked open the badly scratched wood of the bottom drawer. What she wanted was right there, and when she dashed back into Lisa's room with it, the thinker grudgingly accepted defeat.

Her good humour was probably because Taylor was still getting a traditional disguise, so Rachel held back from asking if Taylor wanted to join her. Instead, she sat and watched Lisa work until it was time, then she impatiently shoved what she'd collected at them. Barely noticing Taylor's transformation into a taller version of Lisa.

Even when Lisa cackled and pulled out a stupidly large handbag, Rachel's good mood didn't falter.

When they emerged and met the boys lounging in the main room, Alec laughed and Brian tried to hide his own amusement.

Sitting in Lisa's stupidly large handbag, Rachel didn't care.

After all, what kind of poodle gave a crap what anyone thought of her?


	18. Bitch: 6

Nobody was scared. Rachel couldn't remember the last time she'd been out on the streets and nobody had been scared of her. Even the swaggering skinheads and bad boyz were usually just hiding the fear, but now little kids were smiling at her.

One of them had even reached up as Lisa passed and tried to pat her. Only Taylor's intervention had saved that little shit from bitten fingers. Then the brat's mother had gotten mad, like it was Taylor's fault she was a shitty parent who didn't teach her fucking kid not to grab random dogs.

Rachel's view swayed from side to side as Lisa walked, a folded towel cushioning her perch atop Lisa's things. A purse, keys, handcuffs, a gun, lockpicks, and all the useless perfumes and shit that Rachel hadn't been able to get Lisa to leave behind. Not that she'd tried that hard after Taylor patted them all on the arm while they got ready.

Being able to see Lisa's dejection made it a lot harder to argue with her. It wasn't fair and the blonde knew it.

At the same time, getting to see her friends for who they were was still so fucking great that Rachel could hardly find it in herself to care. Not when she could look around and see her friends, just as surely as she had the night before.

They looked normal. Taylor had made them all a little taller, a littler stronger, a little lighter on their feet, but nothing else.

It was enough for Rachel to understand them, but not enough to give away their identities. Perfect for wandering the streets and taking in the scents of salt and meat and spices and-

_'I know those smells!'_

Rachel's head snapped up and she realised for the first time where they'd been going. Not that she'd ever been able to get this close to it before, but she'd watched it from far away and smelt it every time she walked nearby.

Lord Street Market.

It popped up in some form every day, little stalls selling everything from dumb little knick knacks to mouth-wateringly fresh local produce. Never enough of them to really fill the street, but enough to keep the market alive. Then there were days like today.

The trickle of people on the sidewalk became a steady stream when they turned out onto the main street, then they passed some invisible border to the market and the stream became a flood. Far more people than Rachel could remember being around. Tall, short, fat, thin, wearing every colour she could think stank of sweat and bad perfumes, but her friends were closer and their scents kept it tolerable.

Plus they were among the stalls now, and they were too incredible to waste her attention on random fucks.

There were stands selling everything Rachel could think of, and a bunch of stuff she hadn't a clue about. Packed into every space the owners could find, with barely enough space between for everyone to squeeze around each other, all of it backed up by the din of what had to be hundreds of people shopping and selling and just having fun.

Within the first dozen stalls: Alec had tried on two pairs of sunglasses and a t-shirt; Brian had chatted with a guy selling carved furniture; Taylor had bought a dozen kinds of snacks, slipping plenty into Rachel's bag; and now Lisa was arguing with a guy selling...sleeves?

They slipped from stall to stall, sometimes splitting up, but mostly staying together. Rachel noticed that, other than food, nobody was really buying much. Then again, just taking it all in was enough for her. She figured it was the same for them.

Eventually Rachel found herself dangling from Lisa's arm while she peered at the contents of a one-man jewellery stand like it was some kind of treasure.

She picked through the little pieces of shiny metal and rocks, making happy little noises at them and pulling Taylor over to make quieter (but still happy) noises about them. Rachel knew enough to recognise fake gems and not-precious metals, so she really didn't see what was so great about any of it. The entire stall couldn't be worth more than a few hundred bucks.

"How much for these?" Lisa asked as she held up a pair of roughly carved black stones to Brian's ears. They kinda looked like skulls, at least when Rachel squinted and turned her head to the side.

Brian started protesting them, but then Rachel was distracted by the skinny guy manning the stall saying, "Let's say, a hundred and fifty bucks, since he's a looker."

Rachel yipped in protest and stood up in the handbag. That junk couldn't be worth fifteen, let alone over a hundred. What, did they have coke hidden inside them?

The others didn't seem to see what a scam it was, but Brian shook his head and firmly pushed Lisa's hands away. She pouted and grabbed another overpriced piece of shiny crap, holding one to her own ear while her other hand patted Rachel soothingly. The guy selling it bared his teeth and told her they brought out the colour in her eyes, then he said the price and Rachel barely held back from attacking him.

Then he scrunched his eyebrows for some reason and said, "Do you want a recomendation for a place to get the piercings done? I know a few good places. No gang ties."

Lisa went all tense and confused. "What are you talking about, I've already..." She flipped at her ear lobes a few times, then Rachel saw realisation wash over her just before she drooped in place.

The guy was staring at her now. There was a twinge of worry in Lisa's stance before she grinned at him and said, "Ah, sorry about that, I got patched up by Panacea a few days ago and I guess the bitch must have patched the holes while she was at it." She shrugged and reached into the bag, rooting around blindly beneath Rachel until she found her purse, "These are so pretty though, I figure they're worth getting the piercings again."

Then they were walking away while Lisa sagged miserably, continuing under her breath, "And again and again and again and again..."

Brian was the first one to ask what was wrong, getting a half-hearted glare before Lisa gestured vaguely at Taylor. She said, "No big deal, just noticed one of the downsides to our awesome new member."

Taylor looked guilty and unsure, then Brian patted her on the shoulder and asked, "What downside?"

"You've got a filling in one of your back molars."

"How do you-? Why did I even ask that? Yeah, top right side."

"You still got it?"

Brian laughed, then his tongue poked at his cheek and he stopped laughing. Then he reached a finger into his mouth and huffed in surprise. "It's gone. My tooth is..."

He looked at Taylor and began to laugh again while Alec snorted and Lisa said, "Guess we didn't think what regeneration strong enough to pop out bullets really meant."

"So you just blew two hundred dollars on earrings that you can't wear?" Alec laughed.

Lisa was sulking. "I could just get a piercing gun and do it myself...every time..." She didn't sound convinced.

Rachel sunk her claws into the bag with a yelp as it swung wildly with Lisa's pirouette. The wild sway continued as Lisa grabbed Taylor by the arm and began to pull her through the market as she yelled over her shoulder, "I need to buy some overpriced clothes, I'm taking the girls with me!"

Which should have sounded like fun, but Rachel twisted to look back at the boys left behind them and...she began to whine almost without realising it. The noise brought Lisa to a stop and she was quick to lift Rachel to eye level.

Taylor leaned over, looking worried and grabbing one of Rachel's ears. "I, I gave her full regeneration, I don't know what could be wrong."

Mischievous eyes held Rachel's gaze and filled with understanding. Lisa nodded to her and grinned at Taylor. Then she shouted to Brian and Alec, "Come on! You guys need almost as much help with your wardrobe as Rachel!"

* * *

The place they ended up at was...well it was kind of shop that Rachel's final foster mom used to take her to, only to forbid her from touching anything or moving and get mad if she even made a noise.

So it wasn't entirely unfamiliar when the girl at the door stepped in front of Lisa and said, "Uh, you can't bring that in here." Pointing to Rachel like she was a rat. A really gross rat.

Being a poodle and not a rat, Rachel growled back at her and considered taking the finger that was dangerously close to prodding her. Then Lisa exploded with a bubbly outburst in the weirdest voice Rachel had ever heard her use.

"Oh my gawd! You just can't take my little snugglemuffin away! Like, how would I know what to wear without her guiding me! I might end up totally ruining my image and that would be, like, a complete disaster."

Then she chewed loudly -Rachel had no idea when she'd grabbed the gum- and yanked her purse out. The girl started to respond after a few false starts, but shut up for good when Lisa shoved a roll of tens at her and asked for, "The private changing room. I totally cannot have anyone seeing me or my peeps while we're uncoordinated!"

Without quite knowing what was going on, Rachel was carried past row after row of clothes that didn't even have price tags. Everything looked very well made, and very expensive, and really fucking stupid. She had clothes already dammit. Even to make Lisa feel good, it was pushing her limits.

Lisa swept in front of them through a heavy door (with an internal bolt, a big one) into a room lined with mirrors and curtained alcoves. Rachel could barely remember the last changing room she saw, but this one had a table with a water jug and a bowl of nuts and she was pretty sure that wasn't normal.

Rachel found her bad being passed to Taylor before Lisa dashed back out into the store, Alec bouncing along behind her with the promise of a game of some kind. She was more concerned with squirming her way to freedom and stretching her short legs after she thumped to the ground. Taylor gasped and checked her over for injuries, like a fall of just a few feet could actually hurt her.

Though she allowed the once over anyway, to make Taylor feel better.

Brian cleared his throat with a bark of sound. Both of them snapped their gazes over to him, finding him looking unsure of himself. Which made three of them.

He reached for a handful of nuts and began methodically chewing his way through them. Meanwhile Taylor began to pace in front of one of the mirrors. Rachel settled on her haunches in one of the alcoves and waited for the others to come back with clothes so she could refuse to wear them and they could go do something fun.

They waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And then waited some more.

Then more waiting.

Finally...a bit more waiting.

Right when Rachel was about to fall asleep, a two headed clothes monster plodded into the changing room like the high fashion equivalent to Mush. Even after the piles of fabric were dumped onto benches to reveal Alec and Lisa, Rachel wondered if the piles might be about to attack.

Before she could do anything about it, Rachel was dragged into an alcove along with Taylor and the curtain was yanked across.

"Taylor, I need her as a human." One feeling of sneezing with her whole body later, and Rachel was wondering why Taylor found nudity so embarrassing. It wasn't even her that was naked.

At least, not until Lisa turned to her other victim and demanded she strip to her underwear. While Taylor very slowly did as commanded, Lisa slipped through the curtain and began sorting through her pile. Rachel peered out at her and got a full view of Alec shrugging into a leopard print trench coat and waving something very pink at Brian.

"Look I'm telling you that it'll look good on you. Don't pretend you haven't seen other guys wearing this kind of thing."

Lisa came back in and shoved something at Rachel. She was about to shove it right back when she realised that the fabric between her fingers didn't feel pathetically thin. In fact when she shook it out she found a very sturdy looking pair of cargo pants.

"Uh?" Rachel began, pulling Lisa's attention from where she was trying to yank a dress over Taylor's head.

Instead of telling her why she wasn't making her wear a dress, Lisa blinked at Rachel and smacked her forehead before rushing back out.

Again Rachel peered out and caught a glimpse of Brian and Alec; The latter shirtless and holding a leather vest, the former wearing a neon pink button-up shirt.

"Hey man, I told you it would look good. Now stick this necklace over it."

"Are you serious?"

"Yes, gold is your colour."

"I feel like there's a racist joke in there somewhere."

The curtain shifted and Lisa shoved a handful of underwear at her. All of it was thick and plain. Good support, no frills. It began to dawn on Rachel that Lisa actually knew her preferences and was sticking to them.

"I really don't have the figure for this Lisa." Taylor protested.

Unlike with herself, Taylor was getting no mercy from Lisa regarding her preferred clothing. Instead of the dark colours and baggy styles that Rachel was used to seeing their new member wearing, Lisa had several brightly coloured dresses over her arm and was steadily working her way through them.

Without anything better to do, Rachel tried on the pants and...they were really comfortable.

"I knew you'd like them." Lisa had spun to face her again. She darted around, looking from several angles before nodding and dashing back out to grab more clothes. Taylor was left trying to cover her underwear with her skinny arms, so Rachel figured it was best if she didn't stare at her.

Alec was wearing the vest now, and had switched to similarly leather pants. Brian meanwhile was looking at himself in a mirror.

"What did I tell you? Huh? Now open that shirt up, all the buttons undone and stick this on underneath."

"Wh-?"

"Hey, who knows more about fashion between us?! Clearly me. Since you have the muscles, it only makes sense to wear a muscle shirt."

A shirt was tossed over Rachel's head. "Hey, stop perving." She turned to tell Lisa that she wasn't, only to find Taylor blushing even deeper than before and Lisa grinning at her. "Not you Rachel, you can keep leering. As long as you put the shirt on"

The dresses had gotten darker in colour, and a bit longer. The struggle to get Taylor into one was still ongoing when Rachel gave in and put on...another surprisingly comfy thing. She was pretty sure it was a blouse.

A sudden, "What now?" made her look out at Alec -who had gained a cowboy hat but lost the vest- waving something in the air.

"Shorts, wear them with pride Brian. You've worked hard on leg day."

"Come on Taylor, you do so have the figure for dresses. You just need the right cut, which this is."

It was weird to see Alec and Lisa, who she'd spent so long finding so fucking annoying, being kind and helpful.

"Actually the muscle shirt doesn't work. Try this."

"This is fishnet."

"No, it's mesh. Haven't you seen Predator?"

Actually, it might have only been Lisa being helpful. Alec was too suspicious.

Looking back to her friends, Lisa was finally trying on something herself while Taylor tugged and pinched at the dress that hugged her sides and flared out a little at the waist to suggest hips that she didn't have. It made her look sleek, with the dark colour and silky fabric reminding Rachel of what Taylor had looked like the night before.

Taylor looked at herself in the mirror and smiled for a moment, then slumped with a disgusted look. Like she thought she looked bad.

Lisa's eyes found her own and Rachel remembered that she wasn't the only one who could see these things. Not that that gave her any more idea what to do about it. Lisa had already told her she looked good and that hadn't worked. So what the hell would?

A fox-like grin was all the warning they got before the curtain was swept aside.

They were all dressed, but Taylor still whirled around and yelped at the sight of Brian staring back at her. Alec was inside an alcove and Brian looked fascinated by...something...

Taylor giggled and Brian snapped out of it. Smiling as he said, "That looks nice. The colour suits you."

"Brian." Lisa interrupted, "What the hell-?"

This time Alec interrupted her, leaping through the curtain in a lizard skin tuxedo and saying to Brian, "I've changed my mind about the shorts."

"Yeah, I thought they were too-."

"Here! Wear this instead!"

"...This is a banana hammock."

"Yes it is."

"...You've been fucking with me this entire time."

"Yes I have."

"...I look ridiculous."

"Yes you do. I have pictures."

The _clik_ of Lisa's phone came just before Brian flushed with humiliation and yanked a curtain between him and them. The others laughed and laughed while Rachel paced over to the pile of clothes and found something very interesting among Alec's stuff.

Shrugging into the long coat, Rachel tugged at the fur trim and found it sturdy enough for her. Then she went looking for pockets and was satisfied there too. The arms were a little short, but when she turned back to her friends Lisa was already heading for the door and shouting about getting one in the right size.

By the time she got back, Brian had emerged in his normal clothes and had Alec in a headlock. Taylor was watching them quietly with Rachel's arm over her shoulder. The shy girl was smiling openly and it suited her.

Lisa just laughed and tossed another coat at Rachel. Ignoring Alec's choked plea for help.

When he was released, Rachel was pulling on some new boots and grudgingly admitting that she liked the clothes. Taylor meanwhile had almost completely stopped fiddling with her own, and Lisa had found her way into a completely different set of dumb fancy clothes then when they left the loft. Brian was wearing a different shirt and tying to stay grumpy, while Alec had gone for a t-shirt and the leather pants.

"Well I think we're ready to make a statement." Alec said, adjusting his cowboy hat only for Brian to knock it off his head. She did nod though, and the two of them led the way to the door.

"Um." Taylor brought them all up short. "Doesn't Rachel need to...you know." She spread her hands and brought them together.

Only when everyone looked at her, Rachel realised that she liked her new boots better than the handbag.

Then she had an idea.

* * *

Connie was tired and grouchy.

Her boyfriend still insisted he'd spent the night at home every time she texted him about it. Even though she just knew he'd been out with that trashy little skank Emilia. Her diet was barely working even though she'd stuck to almost totally this time.

Plus she was the only one on the registers this late, and when they finally closed she'd still have an hour of cleaning up before she could go home because the stupid microwave had exploded her lunch everywhere.

When the high roller girl with the dog came back from the changing rooms -loud bitch- with her weird entourage, Connie barely even looked at them. They'd changed clothes of course, so she had to ring up items by looking up the tags because they'd already torn them off.

Even the hundred dollar tip wasn't enough to make her give a damn about them. She just stared at their backs and counted the seconds until she could leave.

It was almost an hour later when Beth came over from locking the doors and gave her a weird look.

"Hey, that last bunch we had in, with the dog?"

"What about them?" Connie mumbled.

"It's just, I could have sworn they came in with a little bag dog...but when they left it came right up to my waist!"

* * *

The stars filled the sky and the waves washed gently on the sand off in the darkness. Sitting on scattered lumps of driftwood, or just lying in the sand surrounded by takeout containers, the Undersiders looked up at the heavens in comfortable silence.

_slurrrrpp_

Alec's straw broke the silence and Rachel growled at the intrusion. Off to her right there was a _thump_ and he stopped.

"Thanks Brian." She said.

"It wasn't me." Came a rumbling above her. Or behind her maybe. Rachel wasn't sure how to think of the place above her head when she was lying down. Except that if Brian hadn't hit him.

"Congrats Taylor." Lisa cheered, "You've passed the last requirement to be a real Undersider."

"Do I get a badge?" Taylor quietly teased back.

"I dunno." Brian cut in, "Try hitting him again."

Rachel closed her eyes and let the words fade into a pleasant drone.

She thought of her friends. Brian's stoic mask, and Lisa's desperate insecurity. Alec's wildly changing moods, and Taylor's slow recovery.

She thought of herself. Of aching memories. Of feeling safe and at home.

She thought of her dogs. Curled up on their beds back at the loft.

Then she decided to stop thinking, and go to sleep with her friends all around her.


	19. Second Letter

_Dear Mr Hebert,_

_In consideration of the extensive correspondence you have already established between us I will not waste either of our time with niceties As you have proven to have the connections required to obtain my private e-mail, I assume you have experience with the harsh truths of government._

_Allow me to begin with a brief summary of my desk at this moment. I am sure you will treat it with appropriate discretion. Amongst the usual piles of useless paper: I have a report on a raid on a Merchant brothel, you may be familiar with their habit of kidnapping young girls unlikely to be missed, unfortunately many of them died in the raid when Squealer brought the building down; Then there's the tally of the dead in the last month's turf wars, most of them fresh recruits and bystanders, also mostly underage; There's a paper on predicting the movements of the Endbringers which I need to finish reading; Some projection of the Nine's projected path for the next year; And something I'm sure you'll be familiar with from your own work, the accounts for this branch of the PRT. Though your union might be one of the few organisations in the city with worse finances than my people._

_I tell you all this so that you can appreciate just how flattered I am that you believe me capable of getting through all of this and then reviewing the files of every student in this city's schools. That would be approximately 40,000 students spread across a hundred schools. You must think very highly of me._

_In fact I believe that you think almost as much of me, as you think ill of Shadow Stalker. Which is the name you will continue to refer to her by if you do not wish to be prosecuted with the full weight of the government against you._

_Those who know me, whose number clearly does not include you, would tell you that I am harsh to the capes under my command. Let me tell you myself that I am also fair. The young lady you are accusing has maintained an exemplary record since coming into our employ. She has fought for the safety of everyone in this city, including both yourself and your daughter. When a monster threatened the lives of helpless students, she did not run as she easily could have, no Shadow Stalker stood her ground and fought to give innocent civilians time to escape._

_Now you have the nerve Mr Hebert to demand that I denounce this young woman on basis of a diary written by your, clearly deranged, daughter? A girl who I might add is a wanted criminal with multiple felonies to her name. I would have thought a Union man would have more understanding of Law Enforcement then you display._

_My job is, as you so clearly noted, to watch my capes carefully. What you clearly fail to understand is that my watch is as much for their protection as for anyone else's. Especially where underage capes are concerned._

_I will warn you once and only once Mr Hebert. If you approach the girls you name in your e-mail. If you attempt to contact them. If you even think about sending your suspicions to the media. If you harass my employees any further._

_You will find yourself learning just what "malicious neglect" really feels like._

_From the Office of E. Piggot (Director, Brockton PRT)_


	20. Third Letter

_Dear Dad,_

_I'm sorry._

_My first try at this letter was just that, over and over again until I ran out of space. It still didn't feel like enough. It'll never be enough._

_I should have told you. You shouldn't have had to find out like that. Not from some polished suit pushing his way into our home. I was scared that if I told you, you wouldn't be able to do anything and you'd, go away again. Like before._

_It all seems so stupid now. If I'd just trusted you sooner. If I hadn't been such an idiot._

_Anyway, I guess it's better late than never. Emma was bullying me. It sounds so pathetic when I write it like that. Like she was calling me names and pulling my hair, which she did do...but there was so much more dad. Her and all her friends. They wouldn't stop. Wouldn't leave me alone. Wouldn't even tell me why they hated me so much._

_After the locker, I thought that it was only a matter of time before they killed me. I got scared. Then I did, well you know what I did._

_I started the fight dad. I hit Emma right in her bitch face, and I wish I could do it again. I wish I hit her harder. She deserved it. I know you always said not to get violent but you did say there were exceptions and she totally deserved it._

_Then Emma hit back and her friends joined in and I was knocked to the floor and..._

_Do you remember Tommy Lee? Li? I dont know if I'm spelling it right. He was a student in the year above me, a little over a year ago a bunch of the skinheads at Winslow stomped him to death behind the school. Then there was that Katie girl who got beaten into a coma the year before._

_When I was on the floor, I thought that was going to be me. I know what you always said about guys who pull knives in fist fights, but dad there were like a dozen of them and I just wanted to scare them off._

_You were right. It just made things worse. Then something happened and I turned Emma into a dog. Suddenly I had powers, which is apparently how it always happens, and Sophia turned out to have powers to and_

_Wait, Dad, my friend just reminded me to tell you, you can't tell anyone about Sophia being Shadow Stalker. No matter what, you can't._

_It's just like the knife. It'll only escalate the danger, and you're already in so much danger daddy. I'm so so sorry._

_So...I fought Sophia, and she kicked my ass. I guess I should have taken Lacey up on those bar fighting lessons. She couldn't catch me though. None of the heroes could, and I ended up finding some friends. Good people dad, you'd like them. Especially, uh, well let's call him...fuck it, he's called Grue. He's a supervillain, they're all villains._

_They're the best friends I've ever had._

_I tried to come back home, I'm sorry about that too. I'm gonna include some cash for the window and all the mess. Don't worry, I've actually made a bunch of money off a thing we did recently. Tattletale says it's too dangerous to tell you the details, but we stole some stuff from one of the gangs and sold it. Or got it laundered, or liquidated, or whatever the right word is. Point is I can afford to pay for the window, and since I'm not there you can't make me take the money back._

_You're probably disappointed. You and, well, mom, you always said I'd do great things. I know you wanted me to go to your college. Sorry to let you both down, I'm just, sorry._

_You deserve a better daughter than me._

_I-_

_Droplets of something had obliterated the rest of the sentence, and drowned almost two inches of paper into a splotchy mess of ink. Below the stains the letter continued in an almost identical hand._

_This is Tattletale. I've taken over this letter for a moment (bet you can barely tell the difference in handwriting, I'm pretty awesome) to tell you that your daughter is safe wih us sir, and that I for one will not stand by and let her mope around like this._

_I suggested she write this letter to cheer herself up, and you too. So she's been given firm instructions regarding not writing any more dumb things that make her cry like that. Since I'm not going to read any of this letter, you'll need to tell on her if she breaks that promise. Also you might need to suggest a punishment 'cause none of us have any idea what to go with. No ice cream for breakfast?_

_Uh, that was Tattletale. She's actually pretty cool. Like Emma without the backstabbing whore parts, and with added psychic powers. Or something. She told me to try and write happy things, so I'm going to try._

_There's four Undersiders other than me. Bitch is the other girl. The PRT calls her Hellhound but she hates that name and I agree, it's way too bland. She's the one who found me and offered to let me stay in the first place. My powers have been able to help her with some issues that she's had for a long time, so I guess I should be proud of that._

_Regent is a dumbass, but a funny one. Like your friend Alexander I guess. Only Regent's a thief and a supervillain and thinks he's a lot funnier than he is. He's kind of been teaching me to pick locks, even though I can smash down doors now. Tattletale and him have competitions to do it as fast as they can, he always wins but they're both so good at it. That's another thing that my powers help with, which just makes them even better at it._

_That what my powers do really. It's not about making people into dogs to make them weaker or something. I can give other people forms like the ones I used to fight Sophia and Triumph. Make them stronger and faster, I can even heal people. It's amazing, I wish I could show you._

_The last member is Grue. You'd really like him dad, he's responsible and grown up and mature and all that stuff. No, really, he is. Makes sure that we plan everything out and stops Regent and Bitch from being reckless. He's even teaching me how to fight, so tell Lacey that I'll surprise her next time we meet. Plus it turns out we like a bunch of the same books, so he's been lending me stuff to read since I can't go out much._

_There's this book he lent me, "On the Gallian Front" by Irene Koller, and I'm kind of in love with it. It's all about a kind of fantasy version of World War Two, or maybe One, and this little country fighting back against all its neighbours trying to walk all over it. I guess I like that kind of thing right now, plus_

_there's this one scene where the commander and his lead scout have to spend the night in an old abandoned house and she, why the hell am I telling you about this it's really well written. I think mom would have liked it..._

_You once said that mom was with Lustrum when she was younger. I know that she ended up leaving, but that's still kind of like being a henchwoman. I...I just want to believe that I'm not letting you down. Either of you._

_I'm safe. Don't worry about me. My friends welcomed me into the Undersiders and I think that I'm enjoying being one of them._

_They're not bad people dad, no matter what the fucking news says. It's like what happened to me. They just didn't have any other options. Bitch especially, well I guess I can just call her Rachel since her name is public. She's an outed cape too, because of the way she got her powers, same as me. She's gruff, but really nice once you get to know her. She loves dogs._

_I wish I could come home dad. I miss you. I'll try to send another letter as soon as I can, if you send one to the PO Box written on the back of this page then I'll be able to pick it up safely._

_Whatever they tell you...Please, please, believe that I did my best. I know that you've always done yours._

_I love you dad. Stay safe._

_Taylor_

* * *

He'd come home, all but snarling at the police car parked up the street "for his protection". Walked up the steps to his house, opened the door to the mausoleum that his home had become, and slammed it behind him even as he thumped the six pack down on the nearest surface not covered in empty cans and bottles.

Then he'd seen it. Sitting innocently on top of the pile of mail on his floor. A plain white envelope marked only with a single word.

'Dad'.

By the time he finished reading it, Danny was holding the letter out in front of himself, making sure that it wasn't beneath the salty waterfall pouring from his miserable beard.

Crying like a child just made him feel even more pathetic. More useless to his baby girl. He still couldn't stop.

She was safe. Taylor was safe.

He laughed and roared at the same time. Sweeping the kitchen table clear of the garbage he'd allowed to build up.

He'd need to clean up, this was no state to let their house end up in, and -he fingered the stack of fifties that Taylor had included- her bedroom window was still covered by a tarp and a whole lot of duct tape. He'd need to get that repaired too.

First though...

Daniel Hebert thought of the e-mail he'd received the night before. Then he took a long look at the letter he was holding.

Grabbing his copy of the Union membership roster. Danny got to work.


	21. Fourth Letter

_**After Action Report:**__ 0-21B-04/25/11-7C_

_**Contributing Agents:**__ James Harlow, Samantha Dader, Miss Militia, Armsmaster, Gallant_

_0027 - Reports of shots fired in the area of Jackson Street. Algorithmic analysis suggested Empire 88 activity in the area._

_0029 - Seismographic monitoring of traffic (See: Traffic Efficiency Initiative, Dragon) showed a convoy heading from known Empire territory to the O'Grady and Sons paper mill (Derelict since 1998). Traffic and security camera footage identified Empire capes flying above the convoy._

_0031 - Approval was granted (Authority of Director Piggot E.) for full Protectorate deployment against the Empire in this case._

_0032 - 911 call made by victim (Ms. Gabel, A.) of attempted mugging. Saved by unseen cape, described use of Grue's (See: Undersiders) power. Not identified at the time as being connected._

_0035 - Armsmaster and Miss Militia were redirected from their patrol route (See: Patrol Schedule B-04/25/11). Velocity and Dauntless deployed with PRT rapid response team 3._

_0046 - Armsmaster and Miss Militia arrived on scene. They engaged Empire capes but were heavily outnumbered and were forced into retreat. Hookwolf, Kaiser, and Abwehr prevented any attack on the Empire soldiers while they evacuated elements of their base, likely money and weaponry. Once reinforcements arrived on scene the Empire evacuated with heavy use of explosives to prevent pursuit. Dauntless and Velocity gave chase but were unable to maintain line-of-sight while defending against cape escorts and the convoy was lost._

_0051 - First known reports of attacks by unknown cape on low level gang members (street level soldiers, pimps, and dealers), amended to this document owing to proximity and similar injuries profiles._

_0122 - With the area was secured and a perimeter established, investigation of the mill began. In addition to standard investigative team, in attendance were Armsmaster (Certified Forensic Tech, Tinker Class) and Miss Militia (Certified Forensic Assistant, Certified Detective)._

_0137 - Responding officers for proximal attacks finish taking custody of the victims._

_0208 - Injured Empire 88 members officially taken into custody._

_0230 - Arrested parties secured in Brockton Central for treatment. Processing begun by arresting officers._

**_Investigation Report (O'Grady Mill) (Armsmaster):_**

_The majority of the building was empty. Signs -cigarette butts, tracks in dust, recent scuff marks- were found of regular patrols in the outer corridors and guard presence at external windows. The most likely conclusion is that the mill has been a major staging ground and storage site for the Empire, requiring appropriate guard presence. Majority of guard are likely to have been unpowered soldiers._

_This conclusion is supported by the remains of a makeshift armoury and the three unconscious soldiers (all junior) discovered in the main factory room. All three were injured, sprawled near the exit corridor in a manner that suggests they were dropped by those attempting to carry them out of the area._

_The cargo elevator at the centre of the factory floor had been torn apart from underneath, however the shaft was almost completely filled with an unidentified and extremely durable metal. Distribution suggests that it was poured in at a consistency close to thin cement, or possibly pumped in from below, then once the shaft was filled the metal became solid. No signs of high temperature were found, likely suggesting the metal has exotic properties beyond toughness. Ultrasonic readings were taken, these suggested basement levels and tunnels, all of which were either collapsed or filled with a solid of density differing from the surrounding rock, likely the same unknown metal. A sample of elevator shaft plug was taken for full analysis._

_I consider it very likely that the Empire has a new Tinker. It is too early to determine if they are a new trigger or a transfer from Europe, however they seem to be adept at large scale works on short notice. I recommend that priority be given to learning more about this cape, especially as the Empire will likely début them publicly soon after these events so as to ensure control of their initial reputation and name._

_Subsequent interrogation of the recovered soldiers revealed that there is an extensive network of tunnels beneath the mill. EDITED (04/26/11): Unfortunately the tunnels were completely sealed by the time the proper equipment could be brought on scene. It appears that the Tinker responsible for the metal is also capable of filling in tunnels seamlessly with stone identical to that of the surrounding stratum. Attempts to search for underground rooms in the area that were not filled in have proven fruitless, given that searching further would require a broad warrant (owing to the overlap of the search with occupied and utilised basements, sewers and maintenance tunnels) for more populated areas and that the docks are famously riddled with tunnels, I recommend breaking off the search for the Empire's underground assets._

_EDITED (05/02/11): An agreement for temporary transferral of Tecton to the Brockton Bay Wards has been reached. Kid Win is participating in the exchange following his enthusiastic request to be considered for it. Note: He is a passionate fan of the Chicago Bulls. A publicity event with the team and the Chicago Wards is scheduled for August, I have submitted a formal request that it be moved forward to coincide with his time in the city._

_Interrogation of the suspects (Weapons charges pending on all 3, drug charges pending on 2 of the 3) also determined that the events of the evening were triggered by an attack on the mill by the Undersiders. Given their usual methods, and the description of the events provided by the suspects, it seems that they attempted to infiltrate the mill via stealth, but were discovered. This lead to a large scale battle in which Grue's power was used to great effect._

_More disturbingly, the Undersiders either have a new member, or else they have been holding back significantly up until now. All three suspects corroborated a version of events in which, once cornered, the Undersiders easily defeated both Crusader and Stormtiger, obscured by Grue's power. Methods suggest use of Hellhound's dogs, however they seem to have acted with intelligence and dexterity not seen before. Her control may be improving._

_Victor was also downed at range, with a speed and totality that does not match Regent's previous record. Though Othala's healing was effective in restoring him. As all three suspects were taken down shortly thereafter, it is unknown how the battle proceeded thereafter. The absence of the Undersiders when the Empire convoy arrived would suggest that they escaped, or were captured and taken away with the convoy when it escaped._

_Absence of Hellhound's dogs, makes the former more likely. The convoy lacked trucks with the space to carry them, and suspension analysis (based on helmet cam footage) suggests none of the vehicles were overloaded._

_Suspect (Kristoff J.; weapons charges, drug charges, severe narcotics addiction) eventually admitted that the mill was guarding something extremely important (as suggested by numerous guards and parahumans) down in the tunnels. I suspect that it was the lab of the new tinker._

**_Addendum (Unknown Attacks) (Miss Militia):_**

_Attacks were initially assumed to be the work of an unidentified vigilante. Algorithmic analysis determined a link between the reports and suggested the 911 call by Ms Gabel was the first attack in a sequence, the route of which can be plotted as a meandering path through the area, moving directly enough to suggest flight or easy travel over rooftops._

_It has since been confirmed that Grue and Regent's powers were used in some of these attacks. This is extremely out of character for a gang of thieves, especially since they did not steal anything from any of the victims._

_The description of several attacks mentions large creatures attacking from behind or above. Initially this was thought to be Hellhound's dogs, however seven of the accounts agreed that the creatures had hands._

_Taken with the events at the mill, it seems there is a new cape among the Undersiders. This new member appears to have tipped them over into more reckless and direct tactics. The Empire will almost certainly retaliate after a blow to their reputation from such a small group._

_Injuries were not fatal in any of the cases, and are unlikely to be crippling beyond the short term. Numerous broken bones were common. In two cases victims suffered seizures consistent with what Regent is thought to have done to Victor, they have no permanent damage beyond muscle strain and injuries from hitting the ground/walls._

_Note: It is likely that one of the victims, a pimp going by Big Al (Born Alistair Leslie Graham), will attempt to press charges of excessive force against Agent Dader. I would like to note pre-emptively that Mr Graham was belligerent and insulting prior to making movements easily mistaken for attempting to draw a weapon. Agent Harlow came to her aid and they had subdued Mr Graham by the time I could get close enough to safely intervene. My estimation is that both Agents used appropriate force given the potential for lethal threat that Graham posed._

* * *

The stack of paper hit the wall with a growl, barely missing Carlos' face.

Sophia squashed the urge to yell at him for barging into her room. He'd just poked his head around the door and it was open anyway. Instead she took a deep breath and cocked an eyebrow at him.

Her team leader snorted with a slight grin and nodded to the papers scattered around her floor.

"So I guess I don't have to remind you to read the report."

It was all she could do not to scream. That piece of shit and his shitty team were getting stronger and they didn't even know details. Ruthlessly crushing the fear and the memory of floating in endless dark with all her speed stolen away, Sophia tried to summon the words to -politely- tell her fellow Ward to piss off and leave her to brood. Maybe she'd even give Emma a call and rant at her for a bit, her friend wasn't volunteering tonight...or was she?

Carlos cut through her composition, "Wanna come watch a movie with us?"

"...okay."

It was weird.

Sophia knew that she rubbed most people the wrong way. She wasn't stupid. She couldn't be, or else she'd never have managed to get through all the dumb 'we need to make sure you're not violent' hoops that the PRT made her jump through. She knew damn well how most of her classmates talked about her when Emma wasn't around, and how the Wards did almost the same.

Refusing to act like a weakling meant making enemies. Not letting anyone give you any shit meant making enemies. Telling it like it was meant making enemies. Reminding people of their proper place definitely made enemies.

Except one day, a couple weeks ago on a day like any other, she'd gotten into a fight with that pathetic shitstain, Hebert, and suddenly it had all changed.

Well, not the school part. The girls that followed Emma around still smiled at her face and ran their mouths behind her back. Cowardly little bitches, the lot of 'em. Emma was braver than every one of them put together.

The Wards though...

"Hey Soph! Come tell this idiot that we're not watching Guns of Fury again."

"It's Guns of the Fury. The." Emphasised Dennis. Vista ignored him and kept beckoning Sophia over to the stretched out sofa she was sprawled on. The little spitfire even smiled when she sat down, offering her some of the big bowl of popcorn she was holding.

Things at work had changed beyond anything she'd ever imagined. Like she'd walked into an alternate earth without noticing. Earth Doppel she'd call it.

The day after the fight they'd actually stood and clapped when she came in. The day before, she'd gotten a few grunts and a "'lo" from Vista, then she'd saved the idiots at her school from that drooling retard and suddenly her teammates started talking to her. Congratulating her and saying how great what she did was and...

...and she'd almost fucked it up.

At first she'd ignored them. Just kept going like always, figuring that the good mood wouldn't last long enough to be worth reacting to. She'd turned down invitations to play games or watch movies, and taken every chance to hang out with Emma instead.

Until she told Emma about it, and her best friend almost bit her head off.

"You can't just waste this opportunity! This is your chance to show them just how great you really are!"

The rant had gone on for a while. Would have lasted longer if Sophia hadn't left before Emma finished.

Still, the next time she went to work after that, Sophia had said tried to be friendly. Or at least, she'd resisted the urge to snap at anyone who annoyed her.

Just like that, she stopped seeing glares out of the corner of her eye, or hearing mutters when she left the common room. Dennis had even apologised and gone on about a bunch of times he'd said stuff about her that she really didn't give a shit about. Though it was kind of nice that he realised he'd been wrong.

Vista asked her to go shopping, and she'd gone along with it with a minimum of mocking the shaker for her desperate attempts to grow up. Carlos had started to ease off on his usual strictness with her and her duties. Dennis still stared at her ass like a creep, but he was actually kind of cute when he was hitting on her rather than just staring. Like a brain damaged kitten.

Then...well...Chris had asked her to help him with a report one day, and she'd actually gone and done it.

It made sense when she thought about it, even if she'd barely understood why she did it at the time.

Chris might act like a meek little sheep, but he had guts deep down. He wouldn't be in the Wards otherwise. Wouldn't jump into the rare fights that they were allowed into. So he had to be strong, even if he didn't always act like it. Helping him was just like saving Emma, a way to get someone strong to actually act like it.

Which was how things should be. The strong should act strong, the weak should know their place, and the scum like Hebert should stay on the ground where it wasn't stinking up the place.

Now that they knew she was strong, knew they could trust her, the other Wards were starting to act strong too. They asked her if she wanted to do stuff with them and they listened when she told them to piss off, without being all pathetic and getting their panties in a twist just because she wasn't soft and polite when she told them to piss off. They were starting to see things her way.

At least that was Sophia's explanation for it. Emma had suggested that maybe they'd always been like this and she'd just never noticed, but that was bullshit. Definitely. Sophia had said so and then thrown Emma's pillow at her.

Whatever.

She shook her head and got back to paying attention to the movie, just in time to see Vista reach out without getting up and pop in a disc ahead of Dennis and his obsession with that one prettyboy parahuman actor guy. The screen announced "The Princess Metal Movie" in a blur of cartoon decapitations and everyone except for Dennis cheered.

When it was over, and the snacks were eaten, Vista had drifted to the console and the others went off to do their own shit and Sophia just sat on the couch as it slowly returned to it's normal shape and length. Chewing her way through the last handful of popcorn.

When it was done she swung her legs to the floor and set off back for her room and a nap before her patrol. She'd have Vista with her and that meant they could go off the route a bit. The kid wasn't a stickler for rules, and she knew how to fight dirty.

_'Not like she can fight any other way, weighing two pounds and all...'_

They had sparring scheduled for tomorrow. As she slid her door closed behind her, Sophia played with the thought of actually getting involved properly for the first time...since that stupid fight with Carlos months ago. When she'd got mad and broken the rules and-

A little white square drew her up short. A rectangle actually. A folded page sitting innocently on her bed, even though nobody else had been in here since she left the room.

"What the fuck?" She muttered under her breath. Reaching out, Sophia readied herself to use her power on a hair trigger and picked it up.

Nothing.

It was just paper.

She unfolded it, "Heh, probably Dennis sneaking in a love...poem..."

It wasn't.

It was almost blank.

Just two lines.

Six words between them.

Printed, not hand written.

'I know.'

Her gut plummeted through the floor. The voices echoing through the thin walls faded away beneath the pounding of her heart and the terror coursing through her.

Still, she couldn't tear her eyes away. Couldn't stop herself from reading the rest.

'I'll be in touch.'


	22. Fifth Letter

_To Whom It May Concern,_

_This letter is to be opened in the event of my death, if it has been opened under other circumstances then it will be considered a violation of my privacy and of Attorney-Client privilege. In such a case please reseal the letter and do not read further._

_In addition to the instructions in my will regarding the disposition of my assets, I charge you to deliver the three letters enclosed within this envelope to the appropriate addresses. These letters are addressed solely to the recipients and are not to be opened by anyone else, or in the presence of anyone else._

_Sincerely,_

_Brian J. Laborne_

* * *

_Aisha,_

_Not really sure if you'll even read this. I've made sure that my lawyer knows to get it to you personally, and there's a copy with some friends, so hopefully you'll get it. Hopefully you won't throw it away._

_Sorry to leave you alone like this. Or maybe that's what you want? I don't know any more._

_It's funny. Once upon a time you used to follow me everywhere, I'm not even sure if you'll remember._

_I was just some chubby little kid who wanted his little sister to leave him alone. To stop asking me to carry her everywhere, to stop scribbling in my books, to stop bothering me all the time._

_You never did._

_There was this one time, we were at that big supermarket out on the west side, the one that closed down a few years ago after Lung and Purity wrecked it. It was all of us, the whole family out shopping for food, and dad told us we could stay in the kid's area they had. Looking back it was kinda shitty. At the time though, a few slides and a ball pit seemed like the best thing ever. You were too small to go in though, so I left you on one of the benches and I had a great time._

_Right up until I heard this big crash while I was climbing to go down the slide and there was a ton of screaming and I poked my head up and saw you at the bottom of the slide with some kid sprawled on top of you. I figure you were trying to climb the slide and he smacked into you._

_There was all this blood, the kid was screaming for his mom, you were screaming for me, and I just grabbed you and tried to shush you until they took us in the back to get you cleaned up. Which was where mom and dad found us. When I told them what happened, mom was so mad at me._

_You might not believe me, I guess I can't blame you if you don't, but she was different back then. She almost ripped my head off. Yelling about how I was supposed to look out for you._

_If it was a story then I guess that would have been when everything changed and I decided to start looking out for you and we became the best of friends. What actually happened was I hated you even more and that was the way it was for years._

_Even after mom and dad broke up._

_The truth is when you sent me that text, I almost ignored it. I thought it was just yet another attempt to get me to go with you to that stupid concert. One Bieber Boys or whatever the fuck it was. My phone buzzed and was thinking how annoying it was to have to put my book down and tell you 'no' for the hundredth time._

_I've never said it, I know you don't want to talk about what happened to you, what that scumbag did...but I know that you blame me. I get why you don't want to hang around me any more. I fucked up. I was meant to keep you safe and I let that happen to you. You should blame me. I blame me._

_Ever since then, I feel like I've lost you._

_You still annoy the piss out of me, don't worry about that. I just never realised that I'd miss the little sister who followed me around and begged for piggy back rides. The cute little kid who wanted me to read to her from books she didn't understand at all. I feel like I'm missing my shadow._

_Now I'm the one following you around. Even though you pretty clearly don't want me to._

_For a long time I thought that was because of what happened, but recently a friend made me realise that it's more than that._

_You're growing up._

_You've got your own life to live, and your own goals to aim for. Even if you're no where close right now...one day you'll be grown up. I doubt you'll want anything to do with me once you actually have a choice in the matter. For sure, you must want me to give you more slack._

_It's just, I worry about you Aisha. You're so smart, but you refuse to go to school. You're tough, but you're so reckless that I just know you're going to get in over your head. You're brave and strong, stronger than I've ever been, but I'm terrified that you're going to get hurt._

_Please be careful. If you're reading this, then I can't look out for you any more, so you need to do it for me._

_I've put most of the money from my job into a trust for you. It's more than you might think, but not enough for you to burn through it. My friends will keep an eye on you, and the lawyer has been paid to keep an eye on the trust and how you're spending it. At least until you're old enough._

_If anything bad happens, go to my friends (contact details are on the other side) and tell them. They'll help you out. Especially with anything dangerous._

_What else is there to say?_

_Just this._

_I'm sorry Aisha. Sorry for everything I didn't do, sorry for everything I won't get to do from now on._

_I love you._

_Now go be amazing. I know you can do it._

_From Brian_

* * *

_To Mom,_

_If you're reading this, I'm dead mom._

_I hope you're at least sober enough to know what that means._

_Well, maybe that's cruel. Maybe it's not cruel enough. I'm never sure how much to hate you._

_Aisha talks about you like she'd be happy to stab you in the neck. I sometimes think that makes her immature. Then I think about dad, and I think that it might just be because she's spent more time living with you._

_Me, I still think of you like you used to be. Back when we all lived to together. When you cooked and yelled at me for not cleaning my room and made dad leave me alone when I wanted to sit and read all night. Do you remember that mom?_

_What I want to say, the only thing left to say, is that you need to stop._

_Stop drinking, stop smoking, stop injecting, stop...whatever else you do. Just stop mom._

_You sold your own daughter mom. Yeah, I know about that. The piece of shit you were offering her up to told me everything while I was hitting him. I guess with all the screaming you were doing, you didn't hear it as well. Or you were too fucked up to remember._

_Point is, you let him touch her for a couple grams of blow. You let him hurt her so you could get high._

_I don't know how you can even live with yourself, but if you ever loved me, if you ever loved either of us. Stop. Get yourself some help. I'm going to leave you some money, money that you can only use to pay for rehab. So go there and, and,_

_Who the fuck am I kidding? I've said this a thousand times and you've never listened. I put your boyfriend in the hospital for molesting my sister and you tried to fucking press charges against me._

_Stay away from my sister. She doesn't need you and she doesn't want you. She sure as shit doesn't deserve you._

_In case you're thinking that there's no one left to stop you, I guess I should tell you that I was a supervillain you sick twisted whore. Aisha knows enough to know who to go to if you try to hurt her again._

_My friends aren't as nice as me. They won't stop at your boyfriend._

_Sincerely,_

_Grue_

* * *

_Dear_

_To D-_

_Dad_

_If you're reading this I'm dead, it's kind of your fault. You-_

_Dad_

_I'm a villain dad. This letter getting to you means that finally caught up with me. You'll probably think I deserved it, but then what the hell have you ever done for this family? It's easy to get up on a high horse about the gangs when you can spend all day sitting around on your as-_

_Dad_

_You know dad, most parents don't beat the shit out of their kids and then expect to be thanked for it. Most dads don't need to be threatened into not smacking around their daughter, they don't think they can do all that and still be in the right. Now I may not be around any more but I've left a letter to my friends telling them exactly what to do to you if you ever lay a hand on Aish-_

_Dad_

_Do you remember my old gameboy? You bought it for me back when you were still in the army, I played it all the time. Then you told me that mom had sold it. Well you and I both know that was bullshit, because I saw you smash it. Just because I couldn't keep up with on a run? Because I wasn't getting enough exercise? I was fucking nine years old you bastard, of course I couldn't keep up with you. You bought me the damn thing and you couldn't even admit that you broke it to force me to be more like you you miserable old shithe-_

_Dad_

_I used to be terrified of you dad. I used to piss my bed when you stomped past my door, I was so scared that you'd drag me out of bed for a late night training session. Or, to call it what anyone else would, taking your anger out on your own kid. I'd try to find excuses to not go to the gym with you, I even went with mom to a fucking crack house one time. Did you ever even notice how I felt? Did you care about anything but turning me into your idea of what I had to be?_

_Do you care about me at al-_

_Dad_

_**I hate you, I wish you were dead. I wish you'd never fucking gotten mom pregnant. I hope you spend the rest of your life as alone and miserable as you are now. I hope the Empire beats you to death.-**_

_Dear Dad_

_Fuck you._

_Sincerel-_

_Your-_

_With lo-_

_Goodbye  
_

* * *

It was way too easy to follow her brother around.

Whatever shady shit he'd gotten himself involved in, 'cause nobody made that much money off legit work, her big brother definitely needed to check his tail better than this.

Or maybe she was just too good at following people. Probably that. She could be a private detective or some shit. Except that was probably a pretty boring job in real life. Just lots of following ugly old people to motels and taking pictures of them with even uglier hookers. Waiting in cars for them to finish with the hookers. Taking more pictures.

Yeah, that was a shitty job. It would have to go without her incredible skills.

Unlike her brother, who was definitely getting a full load of them. Which was just what he deserved if he was going to be an idiot and refuse to tell her what was going on with him.

"Blah blah blah, I'm going to buy an apartment and take care of you. Blah blah blah, I'm really good at stock trading. Blah blah Aisha's dumb enough to believe anything blah." Aisha muttered to herself as she crept from car to car and watched Brian's head for any sign he was turning around. Raw talent at sneaking had been honed by years of avoiding the notice of her mom and whoever she was fucking at the time, so it was easy to avoid making noise and giving herself away.

Brian did at least look back every now and then, forcing her to duck into alleys if she wanted to follow him all the way to whatever his job was.

If he was selling drugs she was gonna...

Aisha slumped against the alley wall, sliding down into a crouch and grabbing her head in both hands. "What the fuck am I gonna do?"

She thought of Brian, big nerdy stick in the mud Brian, acting like the pieces of shit that her mom brought around. Her eyes burned hot and wet and she scrubbed at them until the feeling went away.

Then she remembered Brian was getting away and rushed back to following him just in time to see which way he went.

For the next two blocks she hoped and hoped and hoped that it would turn out that she was wrong all along. That the ever more run down and crappy looking buildings would suddenly turn into neat office buildings. Or maybe one of them was converted into modern offices inside. The kind of place that her boring brother should be working at. The kind of place that he would definitely be working at if he didn't think he needed all this money because of her.

When he walked up to a battered looking door, and opened it without any of the noise that something that rusty should have made...

...Feeling numb, Aisha crossed the street. Her feet didn't feel like they were hitting the asphalt. Her head was somewhere in the clouds. Her hand was on the door handle.

Staring at rust and scratches, Aisha wondered what she'd find on the other side.

Something like her mom's apartment probably.

She snatched her hand away and whirled to run. To get away and never come back and-

_the hands were still on her, two hands that felt like a hundred and ripped and tore at the clothes that she'd saved up for herself and her phone was clenched tight because she had to hold onto it, she just had to hold onto it and she'd be okay_

"Aisha."

she looked up and saw him, saw her big brother looking at her and knew that she was going to be okay

he'd come for her, just like she knew he would

-turned right back around.

Dragging in a breathe of harsh air, Aisha blew it out and pulled it back in, again and again until the blood was pumping in her ears.

Then she planted a boot on the door and shoved it wide open.

It was her turn.


	23. Coyote: 1

A/N: Mike I'm afraid you have a few things wrong. 

a) I don't really care what is and is not canon. 

b) I write what feels like a good story.

c) Not enjoying being physically abused doesn't mean Brian was actually able to get out of training, or that he hasn't come to enjoy it when his dad's not involved.

d) Going to full on addict that quickly is absolutely possible. I've known people who did it. Don't be so naive.

Now please make an account, having to reply to you like this damages the story's flow.

* * *

"Aeeiii! Tonchi-kun no ecchi!"

"Quick grab her skirt!"

"I'm trying, but my affection bar isn't high enough!"

"Use the chocolate teddy bear!"

"Will you guys knock that shit off!" Lisa exploded, glowering at him over the back of the couch. She was blushing so hard that Alec almost thought she might explode for real. A shower of blood and super-intelligent brain matter.

He shared a grin with Brian's little sister -seated beside him on the couch and shouting advice as he played- and most definitely did not stop playing. Soon the scene progressed in the obvious direction and badly dubbed moans filled the loft. With the volume up so high, they almost drowned out the others going over the plan for the fourth time in the last hour.

Like they didn't already know it by heart. Like they wouldn't be able to work things out no matter what.

Almost six weeks of pissing all over the Empire's operations and they were still untouchable. An attack on one of the last dog fighting pits still standing? That wasn't even a warm up. He'd pay attention to the briefings when they went after Kaiser and the brownshirt pin up girls.

In the meantime, he had a rhythm-based minigame to focus on. Trying to perfectly hit the right buttons in time with his character's poorly animated gyrations might not mean much to the philistines over by the planning table, but he and Aisha knew better. If they got a perfect score on this character then they unlocked ultra extreme bikini mode. The name alone had sold it to him.

"Watch out for the timing change!" Warned Aisha, just in time. The shift in pace had ruined them the last three times, but not this time. Conquering the final obstacle, he coasted home to the tune of several breathy little squeaks. Completely unrealistic, but in a way that sent a twinge of amusement through him even now.

His partner in crime grabbed his hand and cheered, crowing about their victory until one of the serious ones finally snapped.

"Hey! We're trying to, um, well..." Taylor started strong and trailed off into mumbling when Aisha pinned her with a venomous stare. Brian stepped forward and took up the slack.

"Enough screwing around, Alec it's time to get ready," Alec made an affronted face and gestured to the costume that he was already wearing, "You know what I mean. Aisha, stay here and don't get yourself into trouble. Don't even think about trying to follow us." Unspoken but clearly heard was the 'again'.

His sister briefly switched her glare from Taylor to him, then turned to face the big screen with a deeply wounded "Hmph!" Alec tossed her the controller then heaved himself off the couch and upright, as slowly as he could get away with. Which wasn't nearly as slowly as it was before he had proper abs.

"Good luck with all your villain shit." Was Aisha's farewell to them all. Said while she waved one hand over her shoulder and used the other to play the game. To Alec's eyes, the level of infuriating disregard was almost artful. He really had to admire her.

"Um, good luck with your game?" Taylor attempted to reply, only for Aisha to completely ignore the poor dork. Again, Alec added points for style to her mental tally. Though she lost a few for choice of target. The new girl had definitely gotten less miserable in the time they'd been going after the Empire, but that was a bit like ice getting less cold. The way she sagged after being ignored brought an echo of something to Alec's chest.

Something harsh and hot and, and...

There'd been a reason why he had waited so long to get ready. Everyone else was already transformed and yet he'd been sitting on the sofa without ears or a tail or the capability to feel. There was a reason why he'd been putting himself through that but now that he was this close to Taylor it was hard to think of anything other than how desperately he wanted it to end.

Like being exhausted with a bed inches away, or starving a few steps from a feast. She had her hand outstretched and he just had to-

He grabbed her hand.

The world exploded.

It was bright inside the loft, still early in the afternoon and with all the lights on. To light up the planning table. Except they also lit up everyone else.

Taylor was as hunched over as ever. Despite her height and the curtain of sleek black hair that could pass for a cloak, she still managed to look small. Her tail was wrapped around her waist, covering the lack of a belt. She wore yoga pants and a sweater with a t-shirt beneath, baggy enough to hide well-honed muscles. Heavy claws and thick skin instead of shoes, but the scary feet were as curled in and non-threatening as the rest of her.

In contrast, Brian positively loomed. His transformation gave him almost a foot of additional height, and came with even more muscle on an already chiselled frame. The ears were hidden beneath his helmet already, but Alec was briefly distracted by the way his tail flicked back and forth.

Though Lisa's was better. Even before she snapped her fingers in front of his face, the huge bushy fox tail already had his attention. It wasn't as cool as the pointy grin she favoured him with. She was the only one of them who'd gone for the fangs but she managed to make it look more smug than scary. Like she knew you were scared of them and was enjoying your reaction but that just made it not scary because it told you that she wasn't really going to bite anyone's throat out.

He definitely appreciated the skin tight costume though. Watching the way her toned body stretched fabric originally meant for a skinnier girl, it made him want to, to, to, do...

His eyes skated away, slid to the side until they found a streak of purple dye in otherwise pitch black hair. Straight and silky and pressed thoughtlessly to the couch where its owner was sitting. Aisha's body was hidden but it didn't matter. He could already see her curves in his mind's eye, and oh what curves they were. Even without the benefit of one of Taylor transformations she looked mouth watering.

Just like that beautiful girl he'd controlled after his big sister decided she wanted to steal the poor bitch's boyfriend, or brother, or whatever their relationship had been. All Alec remembered was how she'd looked as he took control, as he followed his family's urgings and touched her even as he made her claw her own face off. He'd left her alive, no, he'd left her breathing. Not quite his fourth murder.

All because he was a filthy disgusting evil dirty pathetic little coward. A worthless creature that couldn't even feel how broken it was.

This body had claws, so Alec sunk them into his palm and relished the pain of tearing his own flesh. This body could feel sadness, so he let the tears fall. This body was covered in a mask and gloves, so he could pretend he's wasn't doing either.

Unlike the first few times, nobody made the mistake of commenting on it, even though he knew they could all smell the blood. Especially Lisa, but not Aisha. Not the echo of his sins. She didn't know a thing.

Rachel picked that moment to stomp up the stairs, in all her Amazonian glory. Her tits bounced nicely but it was the arms that really drew the eye. She was almost as muscled as Brian and a solid foot and a half shorter. The effect would have been slightly more intimidating if it wasn't for the big fluffy ears and the gently wagging tail.

Still, when she threw an arm around him as she walked by, Alec had the choice between walking alongside her and being dragged at the exact same speed. Having asked Taylor to tune his transformation for speed and agility meant he couldn't do much against his inhumanly strong teammate.

Not that he wanted to. The casual arm became a casual hug and it felt pretty nice.

So nice he barely listened to Rachel's rumble of, "They're done with it."

"You sure we'll fit?" _'That was Lisa.'_

"We might be coming back full sized and in a hurry." added Brian.

"I said they were done. It's big enough."

Then he was being dragged in the other direction for a few steps, and then released because Rachel -and damn how perceptive she'd gotten- must have realised that his pity party had passed and he was just maintaining the hug so he could brush up against her boob.

Well that and to avoid looking at-

Lisa saved him from the thought, "You okay dumbass?"

He waved his hands at her, already healed up. "Sorry, no need for your therapy today oh scrawny one."

They bumped shoulders and Alec fought and lost against the grin that lit up his face. Warmth filled him up and finished pushing out the memories of-

"Stop thinking about it already."

"It's not that easy." He snapped.

"Sure it is." She turned to look at him seriously, walked backwards in pace with the others. "Just stop spending so much time around the girl who reminds you of it. You know Brian doesn't like you encouraging her to hang around here so much."

"Oh please, he loves having her around. And she makes me smile Lisa," He followed her down the stairs, the two of them last in line, "Even when I'm not all there."

"And the only time you're not 'all there' is when you're with her. I've barely seen you go a minute between transformations otherwise."

He tried to squeeze past her but she just stopped and grabbed his arm. Not that he couldn't fight free, at least in theory.

"You can't have not noticed Alec. Bits of the transformations are starting to stick around even when we're powered down. The others are one thing but you and me definitely didn't put in enough work to have gained this much muscle."

Alec thought, _'You think I haven't noticed the abs appearing in my mirror one morning? How stupid do you think I am!'_

Alec said, "Plus there's the tits."

"Okay, a, you're a pig, b, I'd say us all gaining a few inches in height is a better example...and c, don't tell Taylor about her chest getting bigger. She thinks she's just had a growth spurt. I don't want to ruin the illusion for her."

Alec quirked a very doubtful eyebrow at her. "She thinks she grew three inches, put on about thirty pounds of muscle, and grew a couple cup sizes, because of a growth spurt?"

"Well, she thinks the transformation helped, and those workouts really are doing quite a bit. That's why you and me are less toned when we're not..." She waved vaguely at her own arms, which currently looked like they belonged on an Olympic athlete of some kind.

Brian shattered the tension of their conversation, "Are you two coming or not!?"

He had shouted up from the ground floor, where he stood alone beside a massive hole in the ground. Roughly dug through the wood and the concrete beneath that and the stone beneath that. It wasn't lit, but Alec could still see dimly into it and he knew Lisa would have no problems at all down there.

"We're coming, just get moving and we'll catch up!" Lisa shouted back. Receiving a wave in return before Brian hopped down into the pit and vanished in darkness.

Alec tried again to follow his team, but Lisa still had his arm.

"More and more of this stuff is staying after her power wears off. I'm sure we're not going to keep the tails and stuff, ever...but you need to realise that one day you're going to turn back and the mute button is going to stay unpressed."

Another surge of harsh heat rose in him, and this time Alec could feel enough to recognise anger. He let it shove Lisa back and throw her hand off of him. Then he used it to fuel his hissed, "You keep talking like you have any idea, but you don't. You can't help me with this so just leave me the fuck alone!"

Then he stomped past her and peeked into the hole that...was deep enough that even night vision couldn't see the bottom.

_'Maybe it leads to China...maybe it leads to hell.' _Either way, Alec was sure he'd feel right at home.

He stepped out into the air, and let the fall take him.

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Okay folks. Let me level with you here.

For the last week I've maintained near daily updates, however I'm afraid that will be ending here. While I will hopefully be keeping to that pace of writing, between hating my job, having to work 6/7 days a week at my job, and now getting screwed out of a month's pay by my job, I'm afraid I have to focus on the kind of writing that -while a little boring- does have the potential to make me some money.

So while I will be aiming to keep up weekly updates on this story/others I intend to start uploading; Most of my updates are going to be under the name Noxyyda (found on tumblr, foundry, , and blogspot) and will be of an adult-oriented nature. Fortunately that includes an original fantasy setting that I brainstormed with Cailin which should at least be entertaining to write. It's themed around BDSM and a relationship dynamic similar to that seen in Ar Tonelico and Final Fantasy VIII, if anyone's interested.


	24. Coyote: 2

The tunnel bottom rose up and smacked his own bottom. All the unforgiving density of stone, delivered with a leg-breaking drop.

Alec spent a solid minute rolling around and yelling every scrap of profanity he could remember in all twelve languages he knew. Probably more than a minute really. He knew a fuck of a lot of words for 'fuck'. So many that his ass had healed long before he got through them all and sat up, finding the tunnel empty of teammates.

However a trail of footprints and pawprints led off into the darkness, which seemed like a good bet for which way they'd gone. Especially since the only other way he could go was back up into the lair.

Rolling to his feet with delectable ease, Alec set off into the dim light of the tunnel. Of course anyone without night vision would have seen total darkness instead. Leaving the hypothetical version of himself in labyrinthine tunnels several stories below ground level, groping in the darkness until he starved and died.

_'The dork sure comes in handy.'_

It wasn't even a shadow of what he'd have if Rachel added her power to the mix, but Alec had enough of an enhanced sense of smell to know the others weren't far ahead. Probably taking it slow so that he'd catch up before they met their guide.

Sure enough, barely two minutes later one of Rachel's dogs padded out of the dark and licked his face with a tongue wider than his face. It tickled and lit a warm fire in his chest, one that demanded to be let out as laughter. Bending him double as he patted '...Brutus?' and stumbled the rest of the way to where his friends waited.

It wasn't just them though. They're found the guide before he found them, and now their group had an extra.

She was thickly built, but in the way that Rachel was becoming, not the gross bodybuilder way. Natural muscle built through constant work. Just what he'd expect from someone who'd worked on the docks all their life.

Taylor was in the middle of greeting her when he arrived, shyly extending a hand and getting swept into a bear hug that looked like it almost snapped her in half. Even with her form shifted Taylor looked slender and fragile next to their guide. Though when she was released and the she-bear launched a few playful punches from a casual stance, Taylor was able to evade them and look very pleased with herself for it. The constant workouts and lessons with Brian had to be paying off.

"Heya kiddo! I haven't seen you in, well, it must have been months!" Roared their cheerful new pet bear. In the tight confines of the tunnel it became an echoing song that had the others clutching sensitive ears and Alec spinning and laughing. Then he marched up to the woman and thrust out a hand with an inward smile.

"Regent, part-time werewolf and full-time supervillain."

She didn't miss a beat. "Lacey, barely employed dockworker and part-time villainous minion. Oh and I'm also a smuggler. Don't tell the cops." She said the last with an exaggerated wink to the dork that finished endearing her to Alec. Which meant he had to fight down the urge to imagine her face if he just started telling her about what he'd done as a kid.

Would she still be smiling when she heard about that pair of brothers and the fork?

Rachel gave him a lovetap to the kidney and Alec collapsed to his hands and knees. As he tried convince his guts to get back into their proper positions the others casually finished introducing themselves. Fortunately he had superhuman healing powers, or else he might have been mad at her for hitting him, instead of mad at her for continuously sticking her nose into his feelings.

Still, by the time he was back to being upright there were more important details being discussed.

"So, same deal?" said Brian.

"Half of the money, plus anything you want us to launder. Ten percent fee for that."

Instead of acting like most supervillains and trying to intimidate the squishy normie into a better deal, Brian nodded and said, "Sounds good. What about the van?"

As Lacey responded, Alec was distracted by the question of whether Brian was being polite because this was clearly a friend of Taylor's family, because of his personal code of honour, or simply because the boat graveyard had firmly proved to everyone that playing chicken with the dockworkers of Brockton Bay was a stupendously bad idea. Those crazy bastards didn't even know what a bluff was.

Finally the meet and greet seemed to be over. Lacey picked up a duffle bag that had been sitting at her feet, pulling out a heavy duty torch after briefly getting stuck with the zip. She flicked it on and shone it back and forth until she spotted a section of the rough stone wall with some lines carved into it. With a cheery, "Follow me." she set off, oblivious to their wincing response to having a halogen light strobed over darkness adapted eyes.

After that, it was just a whole lot of walking.

The most interesting thing that happened along the way was when the rough stone tunnel abruptly punched through the wall of a much more finely worked one. Complete with brick walls and pipes running along them. Of course the bricks were half broken and the pipes were rusted and the whole thing was incredibly dusty, which just made it even better for them.

Their guide was giving them a proper tour. Spouting facts and dates and what kind of things were smuggled in this tunnel and what year this room was abandoned and some crap about her grandfather dying in a shoot-out with the police. All boring stuff. Except for a brief mention of a stash of smuggled alcohol from the days of prohibition. Except nobody knew where it was.

Sighing in body and soul, Alec had turned his attention back to daydreaming at that point and stayed like that until he walked into a ladder.

_clang_

The pain in his head faded almost instantly, but the laughter was a little harder to shake off. Then Brian went and ruined the moment by shushing everyone and staring fearfully up the ladder to the trapdoor half-hidden in the shadows. Like a loud reverberating metal impact was going to give them away...

Alec stared upwards too.

However after about ten minutes, during which Lisa got Taylor to give her a pair of ears that were each almost bigger than her head, they had yet to have a grenade dropped down with them.

Lacey slumped against the wall and let out a sigh that was halfway to a sob.

_'I guess she's not as used to horrible danger as we are.'_ Was Alec's thought on the reaction. Taylor must have agreed because she pulled Brian down so she could whisper in his ear, and he promptly nodded and said to Lacey, "We've got it from here. If you could go and check up on the other thing."

She nodded shakily, then gave Taylor another hug. This time it was fierce and tight and anything but cheerful. She whispered into Taylor's ear that "Danny loves you, you know that right? He'd be here himself if he wasn't worried ducking his security would tip the bastards off." and Alec felt the hot little crawl along his spine that he was increasingly sure was guilt. He certainly felt it enough in this form to have a good sample size.

Telling himself that the others could hear too, and that it was Taylor who gave them such whisper-resistant hearing in the first place...yeah it didn't get rid of the feeling.

Lacey turning and walking down the tunnel did though. Her torch swung back and forth from wall to wall and Alec couldn't help but see metaphor in the slow loss of light. Especially alongside the creeping seriousness that drowned them.

The fun times were over. As Brian lead the way up the ladder with one of Rachel's dogs under each arm, Alec put his game face on and squared up his mask.

"Time for a good old fashioned Nazi bash." He muttered to himself for the fortieth time in the last two months.

First it was time for everyone else to climb back down and let him go up first and pick the fine collection of padlocks holding the trapdoor shut. Second it was time for them all to climb up and crouch in yet another dusty tunnel while the sounds of distant cheers started Rachel growling. Third they -quietly- kicked open a door to a whole lot of scaffolding and much louder cheers.

Now they could hear other things.

The stomp of feet on wooden boards. The moans and anger of the other side of this fine sporting event. Oh and the growls of two dogs being forced to rip each other to shreds. That too.

They crept through the seat supports, ducking and tiptoeing like they were navigating a laser grid. Brian and Rachel almost got stuck several times and Alec grudgingly gave the latter a boost to get through a particularly tight squeeze. Then grinned in triumph as he easily slipped through after her, easily ignoring the scowl she sent his way alongside a mutter so quiet that even transformed he could only make out, "...skinny...kick your ass...any..."

The volume kept climbing until they reached the underside of the seats and could look out properly on...a shitty old boxing arena.

Except shitty was too kind of a description. Shitty implied that it might at least be able to grow into something worth a damn. This place had definitely never stood a hope in hell of that.

It was way too wide for a city the size of the Bay, more suited to hosting Vegas fight nights then the kind of crowds boxing drew locally. Ringed on all sides by massive stands of white bleacher style benches, all of them rickety and creaking and covered in peeling paint and splinters. The walls and floor and ceiling all looked like ugly architecture from the seventies had been left to rot since the eighteen seventies. The whole place looked fit to fall apart at any moment.

Then there was the centre piece. Where once there had been a boxing ring, the floor had been exposed and then torn up in a rough circle that formed a pit maybe three feet deep. With barbed wire ringing it all the way around there was no way either of the dogs was getting out. Surrounded by cheering men, a wolfhound and a labrador were circling each other and growling through mouthfuls of blood and pain.

Just seeing it brought back the hot harsh feeling. Rage -he was almost certain that's wht this one way- felt good. Rachel's power flooding into him felt even better.

She was holding the bench level with her neck so tightly that it had splintered and cracked beneath her grip. Any one could see that she was giving it everything she had to not explode and charge, even if she wasn't literally swelling with anger.

They all got bigger. And bigger. And bigger. Until they'd all gained another foot or so and the changes to their body became the showstopper.

Fur sprouted, claws formed, and Alec felt the totally fucking bizarre sensation of simultaneously sinking into a cocoon of meat and warmth, and growing even bigger with a twisting and cracking of bone as his skull reshaped itself.

It kind of reminded him of getting high while he controlled someone going the opposite route with the narcotics. Only this was way better because unlike the spark of feeling he got out of drugs, this came with a flood of unfiltered emotion. True feeling, like he'd all but forgotten about. Alec hadn't said it out loud yet but he was definitely addicted to it at this point.

Transforming was addictive, but being boosted left it in the dust like speed being compared to coffee. He was angry with Brian for looking so good and having such an awesome little sister. He was sad and guilty and wanted to die because he was a monster. He felt bad for Taylor and Rachel and the dogs and he wanted to kill and tear and destroy the men cheering and waving betting slips in the air.

He wanted to give in to the blood pumping in his ears. To burst through the bleachers that were already groaning at the emergence of multiple giant hulking monsters beneath them. Alec took a step forward and then pulled it back, thinking of children's dances to distract from-

_"That's enough. We go now."_ Commanded Grue in the limited collection of barks and growls and doggy sounds that they'd slowly been working into an actual code.

Then darkness exploded out of the bleachers to fill the room, and Alec stopped fighting the urge to give in.

Silently, the seats exploded into a hailstorm of splinters headed for the spectators, and Alec flared his head bone ear thingies as he soared through the darkness amidst the cloud of debris.

Screaming uselessly into the sound-eating darkness without a human voice, Alec announced, "I bet you did Nazi that coming!"

Then he slammed into the crowd and there was no more time for quips.

_'There's always time for quips!'_


	25. Coyote: 3

Some of Alec's earliest memories were of being helpless, begging and pleading for the mercy that he had once believed in. Once.

In his moments of clarity, when the shift gave him back his heart and yet he was not overwhelmed, Alec reflected on what he had done and how much of it had been driven by a quest for power. To not feel helpless again.

Probably not nearly as much as it had been driven by naïve hedonism and shitty parenting. Still...

As he picked up what felt like a muscled skinhead in each hand and gently bashed them together, Regent realised that he'd lost his train of thought. Something about being helpless?_ 'Eh, whatever.'_ A stray bullet stung his thigh and he tossed the limp pair to the ground before turning and groping towards the prick with the gun.

Another bullet scored his cheek and he howled fury and pain and vengeance and remembered that the darkness did piss all to block smells. Scorched propellant and hot metal, easy scents to remember and ones he'd had plenty of opportunities to learn in the last few weeks, both coming from a spot a few degrees to the left or where he'd been going.

Gunfire kept coming, stinging and slicing like a fucked up bee. Regent didn't slow down and he didn't turn away. Instead he sunk his claws into matchstick floorboards and snapped his teeth at the twig bones waiting somewhere in the dark. Jaws slammed together on nothing, and nothing, and nothing, and nothing, and hot copper and metal and raw meat and shattered bone.

It tasted fucking awful, but a bit of spitting took care of that problem. Meanwhile he got a hand around the fucker's waist and hoisted him up. Pathetic flailing and the stench of piss and shit, of tears and blood. A squeeze and he'd be crushed, another hand and he could be pulled apart, heck even tossing him away hard enough would end a man that should have been able to beat the living shit out a skinny teenage boy. Who was the weak one now?

_"Look at him Jean-Paul! Look at him cry like a little bitch!"_

_Screaming and sobbing from the girl spasming on the ground, but the bodybuilder's tears were silent._

_"You think you're better than me!? You think those muscles mean a shitting thing?!"_

_A handle entered his view, he followed it up to a knife's blade, then further, to a familiar hand._

_"Even my stupid little brother is enough to cut you up."_

Bile rose and he had to fight it down. Drowning in vomit inside a flesh suit was what he deserved -not even close- but there was a job to do and his team were here. Rachel with her hugs and awkward punches, Lisa with her arrogant fumbling attempts at therapy, Brian and his dumb sense of honour and loyalty and family, Taylor...who'd saved him from a hell he'd never known he was in, and a peace he could never know again.

Pawing at his victim's body reassured Regent that he'd just broken the Nazi's arm badly, not bitten it off. Then he put him down and fought, for the thousandth time since he'd first been transformed, to get some control over himself.

How everyone else dealt with feeling so much all the goddamn time was a complete mystery to him.

Leaping blindly towards a smell of sweat and fear, Regent got back to work.

This time he was kinder with his blind attacks. He just broke their legs a little.

As he did it, despite knowing only Grue would hear his growls, Regent sang, "Come here little shitheads. Come heeeere."

A warm thump against his leg proved that coincidences can get weird as fuck sometimes, shortly before Regent scooped up his latest victim and slammed him -no, wait, her- against the floor until she stopped trying to move and settled for just groaning in agony. Which was pathetic, even Regent could keep going with a few cracked ribs. The quality of scummy henchmen was really going to hell these days.

Sniffing for another target, Regent idly pondered how Lacey would do in their place. He was certain she'd be a better henchman...henchwoman? Henchperson? Wait, wasn't man originally the gender neutral form? He remembered something like that from one of those fucking lectures by the bookish library slave that had sometimes patted him on the head after a lesson.

Snatching up another helpless prick and carefully breaking him, Regent wondered if that one had been his mother. He'd never been able to figure out for sure, but she'd been one of the more likely candidates.

Of course she'd also gotten her head blown off during an attack on the compound, so it was weird how much he was crying as he remembered her. What had he been thinking of again? Lacey beating up Nazis? Yeah, that was a fun thought. Lacey would have been a great mom.

_'Woah. Where did that come from?'_

Pondering his mommy issues shot to the back of Regent's mind as the darkness abruptly vanished. In an instant they were out of the endless void of silence and scent, and back to the shitty overgrown boxing arena full of pitiable moans from shitty people.

Grue growled the all clear.

Rolling the tension out of his shoulders, Regent stood to his full height and took a look around. His team were scattered around the dog fighting ring (now occupied by two very scared dogs, with a huge werewolf stomping down to comfort them with three huge monster dogs trailing her) and surrounded by the injured. Grue was the furthest away, but then he'd probably focused on those that the rest of them were unlikely to reach with scent alone, so it made sense.

Stepping carefully around the broken weapons and almost as broken people, Regent made his way over to Runt. As ever, her height made him chuckle appreciatively. Between their focus on the Empire Eighty Eight, and constant use of Grue's power, it still didn't seem like anyone in the PRT had figured out what was going on. At least the news had yet to announce anything.

Someday though, someday everyone would be able to appreciate the irony of calling someone Runt when Regent had to look up at her while in the form of a werewolf sized for tossing cars at people. Also they'd get to enjoy trying to point a camera at her with the weird fur that had him looking over her shoulder before he'd even realised.

"Growwwwl." Translation: 'How many of 'em did you get?'

_"Confusion."_

"Bark bark!" Translation: 'We need to improve this code.'

_"Confusion."_

"Bark woof." Translation: 'Hah, I can call you a dumbass and you can't understand me.'

_"Confusion."_

Regent kept messing with her, watching out the corner of his eye as Tattletale wandered her eye covered self over to where he was guessing they kept all the money. Grue had hopped down into the fighting pit and was helping Bitch with the dogs. Meanwhile all the Nazis were down and either unconscious or wearing a blanket of darkness. All in all, another easy job.

Even as Tatt's warning howl blended with the hollow boom of splintering wood and the snicksnak of blade against blades, Regent took a moment to curse his big mouth to the lowest pits of the worst hell he'd ever read about. New Jersey.

Lightning sparked along his fur and set his nerves to singing. He focused on the blur of metal that had exploded out of the fighting pit's floor and pinned Grue to the ground. With how much his power had been boosted, he knew instantly that it was useless. Hookwolf had no nerves for him to feel, let alone pump with power until the Nazi had a fit.

Set aback by his failure, Regent was still standing in place when Bitch howled pain and fury and rushed Hookwolf. Dimly he realised that there were a pair of dogs spitted on some of the gladiator's blades, then Bitch hit him with her own dogs right behind her. Or at least, she tried to.

Grace was a strange thing to see in a two storey tall monster made of knives, but there was no other word for how he flowed around and beside her without ever losing his hold on Grue. The floor became kindling, the dog corpses became shredded mince, and Bitch found herself facing empty space and with one of the Bay's most dangerous capes at her back.

Runt hurled herself towards them, but it was Bitch's dogs that saved her. Charging close behind her, they now threatened to take Hookwolf's back and he didn't have the time to seriously wound Bitch. Instead he grabbed a pair of the bone spires sticking out of her back, an awful screech of metal edges on bone filled the arena, and swept her into the air.

She became a club for him to sweep through all three of her dogs before letting go. They tumbled off to the side and he turned his attention to Runt. Which was when Regent realised that he was really really fucking angry.

Everything blurred but the gleaming piece of shit that was standing on his friend. The tunnel vision suited Alec just fine, because he had nothing else worth paying attention to. His leap forward continued the shredding of the floor, craters marking every step as he pushed for more and more speed. A body that weighed several tons accelerated to highway speeds, and leapt.

Not to slam into Hookwolf like Taylor had just tried to do, because Alec knew that he'd just get thrown like she was and like Rachel had been before her. No, he aimed to just barely clear Hookwolf's bulk. So of course the bastard stuck up an arm made of blades to grab him.

_'Just as planned motherfucker!'_

Alec grabbed the limb with all of his, even wrapping his tail around it. Immediately he began to roar in pain as his flesh was scored and sliced and carved everywhere they touched...but he was still big and heavy and moving very fast. Which meant that Hookwolf found himself yanked off balance before he could retract the limb into his amorphous body.

Trust was a funny thing. Alec was left bleeding everywhere and yelping in pain; sprawled on the floor and helpless. Yet he didn't worry about himself at all, as much as he liked being intact and unharmed and even though he felt so much more fear these days. He'd never trusted his family, but he was starting to trust his pack.

There was a crash like a truck full of silverware hitting an ironworks as Brian swept the legs out from under their enemy and sent him rolling across the floor. Taylor was on Hookwolf in a moment, Rachel right beside her as they swiped at him with blows that could tear through concrete like butter.

Soft growling in his ear, then a relatively slender arm pulled him upright without a care for the way his blood matted down her pretty fur. Lisa stood at his side and watched two werewolves and three giant dogs driving Hookwolf back, every one of her eyes focused on them. They couldn't talk to one another, but Alec knew they had the same thought in mind.

_'This isn't going to work.'_

He was letting them drive him back, but they weren't actually hurting him. It was like hitting a pile of jelly that kept oozing out more jelly to fill in any gaps. A dense lump of blades pulled him back and they accomplished nothing but smashing the trailing edge of him and trimming the fur on their arms.

Hell, the blood that stained his body couldn't belong to him and they weren't crazy enough to push him back over the areas littered with bodies. They were doing more damage to themselves than to him.

_"That's enough. Here!"_ Brian roared the order and, after a few seconds hesitation, Rachel and Taylor broke away. Alec joined them in crowding around their leader, as did Lisa. All the while Hookwolf pulled himself into a metal wolf that came up to Brian's shoulder.

Their leader didn't look at any of them, even as he patted each of them with one of his bone armoured hands. He didn't look at their wounds, or acknowledge the deep gouges dug into his bone plates where Hookwolf had stood on him. He kept his eyes on the Empire cape, blinking carefully and breathing softly. Each breath spread his scent into the air, until it overpowered even the smell of blood with sweat and leather and resolve.

Alec didn't get it. He itched to move...but Brian was in charge, and that was something he could feel even deeper in his bones than the call to battle. Plus, there wasn't a trace of retreat in Brian's eyes. No, in Grue's eyes.

Gently pushing through them, Grue stood at the fore of their group and continued staring Hookwolf down. The Empire's enforcer wasn't intimidated, forming a wolf's smile out of bloody steel.

_"Follow. Me."_

Then everything went black. Then Regent understood.

Fur brushed against him, massive footsteps shook the floor beneath him, and Regent fixed his mind on the scent of leather. Then he leant into a four legged sprint and followed Grue into the abyss.

There was no sound of impact, nothing to warn him that it was coming. Just a wall of metal and pain that loomed out of nowhere and dug in against the crash of his shoulder. It barely moved a few feet, and that was fine.

Regent rolled out of the way and followed the scent once more, wondering which of his team had been next in line to hit the fucker.

His world became an empty void. Nothing to guide him but a scent increasingly choked by blood. Nothing to mark time but the crunch of blades breaking and tearing at his flesh. Nothing to comfort him but agony and companions he couldn only sense by smell. Nothing to tell him if it was working at all.

He had nothing, but his friends, and the trust he chose to give them.

It might have been the twelfth hit, it might have been the thousandth, it was the first time he felt the blades yield to him. His heart pounded a battle drum and his spine thrummed to keep tearing at their prey. Regent shoved it all down -ignoring the revelation that he could do such a thing- and rolled out of the way.

Three more hits, and the darkness vanished.

Alec slumped to his knees and tried to ignore the river of blood pouring out of his body. Regeneration had been a focus for all of them, so the fact that he was still bleeding and not just covered in tender lines of pink said a lot about how much punishment they'd taken.

The others were in similar states, even Brian's armour sliced through in places, but Hookwolf was worse than any of them.

Heaving himself upright and strolling past Rachel and Taylor, both of them soothing Rachel's equally injured dogs, Alec found himself standing beside Lisa yet again. They stared down at what was left of Hookwolf and shared as best a laugh as their warped throats could manage.

He was barely the size of a mattress, a meagre puddle of blades amidst the scattered pieces of hundreds of them. Shrunken so much, he could barely move and didn't have the volume to hide his core any more. An ornate cage of metal of which only the outer edges were sharpened. Within was the only part of him that could cut nothing. A heart, beating frantically, made entirely of steel.

Lisa caught his arm before he could snatch it up, then shook her head at him in a pretty clear message about what that would do to the helpless cape.

It was super tempting to do it anyway. Like, suuuuper tempting.

He stayed where he was, looking down at the mighty gladiator even as Lisa went back to robbing the place blind. Even when the others started to carry cages out of some backroom, Alec kept looking right at their foe. All that power, reduced to a puddle of metal. Even if he'd probably recover, this was total victory.

After a while Hookwolf managed to form an eye with which to return the glare, so they could have a proper staring contest. Though it was kind of unfair that the Nazi could make his eye blink red like that. Especially since...Hookwolf was made entirely...of metal...

Feeble struggles didn't do a damn thing to stop Alec plucking the lump of grey plastic out of Hookwolf's beaten body. It was painted metallic, blending in almost perfectly, except for the blinking red light at the base of what definitely looked like an antenna.

_"Danger!"_ He howled, followed by, _"Escape"_ Even as he ran for the exit, the others were surging towards him. He held up the beacon and understanding washed over them. Lisa hefted several heavily-stuffed duffel bags onto her shoulders and Brian snatched up the bag of costume parts they'd left against the wall. Not that Alec caught more than a glimpse of either of them as he sprinted out into a long dark corridor and then dashed for the amber light at one end of it.

He burst through rotten doors onto a dimly lit street, jerking his head desperately back and forth until he saw it. A large white van parked in an alley across the street. Already heavy on it's suspension with all the dog cages he knew would have been stuffed into it already. He was beside it in an instant, only to remember that he was still bigger than it was and therefore could not begin the getaway quite yet.

A wave of weakness brought him to his knees, Alec welcomed it. More specifically, he welcomed the way it withered and weakened his giant form until he felt his actual body again and could start to squirm out of the meat-mecha. They'd planned to follow the van for a while before all of them transformed, but vague memories of the planning sessions that he should maybe possibly have paid more attention to told Alec that their response to incoming reinforcements was to shed the big forms and go for subtlety.

Even they couldn't take the entire Empire head on.

By the time he was free of the prison of flesh and bone there were four more lumps of rapidly shrivelling giant werewolf -and three of giant dog meat- in the alley. He was the first one all the way out, and as tempting as it was to laugh at the others being all naked and covered in the fading meat gunk, Alec was cold as balls and that was marginally more important than mockery.

He hurled himself into the van after grabbing his clothes. Then he cranked the heating to full and struggled to dress without getting out of the passenger seat or acknowledging the horde of barking dogs in the back.

In testament to how much quicker it was to change when not stuck in a small space, despite Alec's headstart he'd yet to button up his shirt when the doors opened and the others tumbled in. Lisa was driving and she got the van moving so quickly that Alec didn't even make fun of her for having left the back zip of her costume open. Plus she was sitting on her tail and that usually put her in a snappy mood.

They pulled out of the alley and set off down the street, still no signs of incoming grunts and flying Nazis. Not that any of them let their guard down.

Unlike the chatter before a job, the escape was silent and filled with each of them glaring out through the windows. All of them searching frantically for any sign of pursuit.

It never came.

Not when the streets began to become occupied enough that they had to change into civvies and hide the inhuman parts of their forms.

Not when the inhabited streets became busy ones, marking their crossing over into Downtown.

Not when the buildings became glass and steel instead of old brick structures.

By the time they passed Brockton Savings and Loans, Alec was almost relaxed enough to point out that they all stank of both blood and wet dog at the same time.

Then the fist of a god smacked into the side of their van and the entire world became fire.


	26. Coyote: 4

.

...hot...

.

.

..._'Hurts'_...

.

.

...light without a memory of darkness before it. Searing his eyes until he slammed them shut and, and...

.

.

...Alec couldn't move. Something was pinning his legs...and...there was something digging into his back.

It hurt to turn his head, and everything he could see was blurred into a mess of red and black and his head hurt just trying to make sense of it all. Still he craned his neck to look over his shoulder and see...and see..._'...oh, I'm hyperventilating aren-'_

.

.

-He flinched against the metal bar stabbing into his back and screamed through a mouthful of blood. It came out as a pitiful "Burbbul." Red splashed onto something in front of him, sidewalk, but his mouth hurt like hell so it was probably just that.

Agony lanced up his back and he grit his teeth against another scream, spitting blood to clear his mouth as he looked around. He'd been thrown clear, but the van had come apart and one side was lying on him. It looked like a side at least, but it their ride had rolled and it was missing the roof as well as one side. Meaning he could look inside and see...

_'I, I know I've seen worse...why...they're just dogs!'_

...Alec bit his cheek against the ocean of rage and pain and sadness that lapped at his body, almost rising up to drown him. It soaked him right up to the lips, and then the wave receded and he was dry and focused. The dogs in the cages were mulch, but he couldn't see anyone else's corpse. Brian and Lisa looked to be slumped in the front of the van, the others had been in the back with him and probably tossed just as far by the crash.

There was a world beyond their little chunk of it. There was fire and smoke and he could hear screaming. None of it mattered, he didn't recognise the screams and he refused to give in to the feelings that they called out of him. He was the only one conscious and...he looked over his shoulder again at the metal and plastic weighing him down.

With a lot of grunting, he managed to squirm his arms out and free. They were coated in blood, which was probably because he was lying in a puddle of it. Someone was probably missing all of it pretty badly. People needed blood too much to just lose this much of it.

"Rarragh!" He screamed his pain and dug his fingers into the ground with strength he'd never earned. His body rose and debris screeched together and holy fucking cocksucking christ on a shitstick it hurt like a mother fucking mother fucker.

Still, he'd heaved himself into a press-up position, which was one more press-up than he'd intended to do this month. Dammit. Next bit would be worse though.

Imagining a beautiful woman beneath him -ignoring the colour-streaked hair that his mind insisted on giving the fantasy- Alec blew air through his teeth and considered just what he was about to scream. It had to be classy, but offensive. He jerked his hips forward, his attempt at a distracting fantasy vanished in the fire of yanking out a rod of metal stabbed two inches into him, and he realised that he didn't have enough breath to scream anything. The pain had taken it all.

Heat had almost dried the blood on his hands, more slithered down his arms though, hot and cold and slick over his hands. His grip slipped just a little and the debris rocked across his back. Just a little more though. He just had to shimmy...a little...to the side...and forward...

He collapsed with the wreckage merely bruising his calves. Nothing stabbing him or even really holding him down. Fuck, it was amazing how comfortable a sidewalk could be. Even when it was littered with bits of metal and glass and blood and everything smelt of smoke and screaming and...

.

.

_bang_

Gunshots, the best alarm in the world. At least if you knew them well enough to nearly piss yourself at the sound.

Something must have healed a bit because Alec could think clearly and his vision was almost totally not a blurry mess. He could see far enough to make out Taylor slumped on the other side of what had probably been a nice glass building front before she was hurled through it. He could see Rachel lying among a pile of fur and exposed muscle, her dogs still not quite returned to normal, her tail weakly flicking at the air. He could see Lisa and Brian stirring in their seats, lying in a tangle that he'd definitely remember later. He could see the pair of skinheads wandering around the edge of the ruined van.

They both had guns. Big scary assault rifles, or whatever the fuck the proper name was. The kind that had lots of bullets and fired them very quickly.

Before he could even consider optimism, one of them pointed to Grue's fucking helmet -visor shattered but still recognisable- and proved optimists were stupid.

"Oi! Testicle head!" Wasn't his best material, or even good material, but it was too late to regret it with them already turning to him and raising their guns. He kicked and wriggled against the wreckage and got one foot free, but they were already seconds from blowing holes in him and his regeneration didn't feel like it had even finished closing the wall hole in his back yet.

Alec groped for something small and weighty. His fingers closed on something just as he got to look down the barrel of a gun. He jerked his head into a harsh nod and -_bang_\- one skinhead screamed shrill and ragged as the tip of his boot vanished in a burst of red. Grabbing the ground with his left hand and kicking at the wreckage with his free foot, Alec hurled the hunk of metal in his other hand.

_clunk_

The skinhead staggered backward and Alec tore his foot loose. No shoe. No time to care. The fucker was already bringing his gun up again. Scrambling on all fours in an animal sprint, he ignored the snapping of one of his fingers and hurled himself into the bastard's gut as the rifle sprayed bullets above him.

Focusing on agility didn't mean he hadn't gotten some boosted strength. The Empire grunt went down with an explosion of breath, retching and completely defenceless as Alec wound up and drove a fist into his jaw. Bone cracked in both jaw and hand and there was nothing to keep the rage from boiling over him. Another punch, with the other hand and fuck he still had a broken finger on that one. Pain dispelled the anger almost instantly and he pulled back to yank his finger into place to heal.

Which was when Alec noticed that the other guy was leaning against the van and had his gun pointed right at him.

_'Dork your regen had better be more than we thought it was.'_ Though he'd probably held them off long enough for his team to recover, so at least there was that surprisingly comforting thought for him to die with. Not quite the death he'd wanted, but it wasn't that much worse than a mountain of drugs and hookers.

A boot smacked the gun's barrel upwards right as it spat fire and lead and holy shit he took it all back, he wanted to die with the hookers and even that only when he was much older. Not that he was at any risk of dying now.

Brian had a cloud of darkness wreathing his head, which probably made for it really weird for the crippled Nazi when Brian headbutted him. The dumbass reeled back against the van instead of pressing forward, and his gun was torn from his hands easily. Watching with no small amusement, Alec glanced down to the moaning lump he was sitting on, whose face was looking swollen as shit already, and then back to the Nazi that had just put up his arms in a boxer's guard.

"Come on then nigger, I'll-" The world would never know what unnamed Nazi number two had planned to do, because Brian flowed to his side and a hand snaked through the Nazi's guard. Words become choking and the clumsy guard fell apart as the skinhead clutched his throat and rasped for breath.

"Don't worry." Brian said in his scary motherfucker voice, "I've had a lot of practice with that. You'll probably pass out for lack of air, but you shouldn't die." The Nazi collapsed to his knees, and then slumped to the ground completely. "Well, maybe a little brain damage." Brian completely failed to sound remorseful.

Looking at the state of downtown, Alec was amazed he hadn't ripped the man's throat out with his bare hands.

The street was on fire. Not the whole thing, but enough gas had been splashed around that even the ash and smoke in the air couldn't choke the flames. The gas of course had come from the cars that were scattered around like...like...Alec didn't know what to compare it to. Brockton Savings and Loans was missing the entire front of the building several stories up, and everything on the street had been hurled away from the crater that replaced that stupid modern art fountain thing that he'd always taken the piss out of. _'Huh, is that what that piece of metal was from?'_

Screams and moans filled the air, punctuated by distant gunshots and distant explosions. He couldn't see any more Empire grunts on the street, but there were definitely people. Most of them that he could see were in several pieces, but they were there.

His head snapped to the side and heat rose in his cheek. "You slapped me!" Alec accused Brian.

The larger boy made no attempt to deny it, "Help me with them." He started towards the van and Alec realised that the others might need help with their recovery. Not everyone could be as awesome as him after all.

Lisa was only slightly less awesome, having to be woken up but easily tearing her jammed seatbelt loose. Taylor came next and turned out to have a lot of glass in her side, Lisa and Brian attended to her while Alec made his way to Rachel. She was clearly breathing so they'd saved her for last, but as he got closer Alec wondered if that had been the right idea. There was a fuck of a lot of blood. Even more than he and Taylor had leaked.

Only when he was just a few steps away did Alec realise. He'd thought the jerky breathes were just pain, the sounds had been lost beneath the noise of sirens and chaos. Who the hell would have thought Rachel was even able to cry like that? Sobbing and choking on her grief.

He didn't get it at first. All three dogs were breathing, if not moving much, and she'd barely met the ones in the cages. This was more emotion than he'd seen when he snuck Old Yeller into a movie night a fortnight ago.

The last few steps solved the mystery. Let him see that Rachel had torn her shirt to rags, all of them as stained with blood as she was from fingertip to shoulder.

Her makeshift bandages, plus a roll of actual bandage, were wrapped around the stumps where one of her dogs used to have front legs. Soaked red and dark and stinking of metallic misery. The other two (he recognised one as Angelica, so it was either Brutus or Judas that was injured) were curled up with it and Rachel, whining gently and occasionally licking the poor little shit.

"Um..." He didn't know what to say. He regretted even trying when Rachel snapped her head up to look at him and snarled.

"Shut up. You don't even care."

That, that wasn't true. He did care. Not as much as if it had been a person hurt, but he cared more than he cared about all the people scattered in pieces around the street. Which was more than he had cared about anything before he had been healed and transformed and run behind Rachel as the world opened up and filled with life again. He did care. He'd found the part of him that cared.

Words to tell her that though...those who couldn't seem to find.

A heavy hand squeezed his shoulder. Brian had already gotten his leather jacket and gloves back on, even if the rest was still jeans and trainers. Thoughts of their complete lack of costume couldn't seem to find purchase in his head, and when Brian nudged him away Alec made no attempt to resist. Just walking away, not hearing what Brian said as he knelt down beside Rachel and her furry family.

Stumbling and wondering why he wasn't feeling more, Alec found his way over to Lisa and Taylor. He found Taylor fussing over the pink lines fading into her skin, and Lisa struggling with one of her belt pouches. He wanted to scream at them. He wanted to scream at all the noise to just stop already. Instead he stood and watched Lisa fumble a bunch of little pieces of black cloth out of her belt.

"Emergency masks." She demonstrated by unfolding one into a thick strip that wrapped around her face from nose to hairline, securing at the back with velcro and leaving her eyes uncovered. She handed him another and Alec secured it mechanically.

Then he fell to his knees and threw up.

Tears overflowed his eyes, feeling pouring out as he remembered all the blood he'd just seen. All the cries of pain still ringing in his ears. When the voiding of his stomach and heart finally slowed, he gasped, "Why?"

"Last month there was a Pride Parade." Lisa mumbled, distracted and pouring over her phone, "This bank made a big deal of funding it. We, weren't meant to be hit by this. Hookwolf's transmitter was for something else. Dunno what, yet."

"How lucky for us." He spat. Then spat again, just to get a bit more of the taste out of his mouth.

"Lucky for them." Taylor cut across both of them. "These people need help. I know I'm healed, so I'm going to go help them." Unsaid was the plea for them to do the same. God, what a pathetic goody goody dork she was.

Alec heaved himself to his feet and sighed heavily. Then he turned and marched off around the side of the van. "No time to waste ladies. First rule of rescue work."

Lisa shot back something about him not knowing shit about rescue work, but her heart wasn't in it. Taylor looked to be too focused on the task at hand to even notice their banter. Then they came to the first body and even he couldn't think of anything but what they needed to do.

It was five bodies before they found someone alive. A woman bleeding sluggishly from a head wound, but who Lisa judged to be fine after they ripped the door off her car and dragged her away from the smouldering vehicle. Two more bodies down the line he heard the damn thing explode, but a kid was crying beneath a flipped car and memories of huddling beneath his bed all night flushed Alec's mind clear.

After a few minutes they spread out to cover more ground.

After a few minutes more they'd found the last of the survivors in the area.

Whoever the Empire had tapped to make the bomb clearly knew their shit. Almost no one who wasn't shielded from the blast somehow (or boosted with regeneration) had survived. This was something made to kill, not wound.

The Empire had gone completely fucking insane.

When Rachel and Brian came over, the former holding the crippled dog and making no attempt to hide her puffy eyes. She wore her tears with pride. Alec wasn't sure why, but he respected that.

Lisa looked around at each of them, then held up her phone to show a news report that involved a lot of fire. "This isn't even close to the only attack going on right now. We may have pushed the Empire further than we thought."

He couldn't stop himself, "You don't fucking say."

"No." Brian interrupted, "We've done a lot of damage but nothing like enough to cause this."

"You would be right." Lisa started to agree, "Except for the others."

"Others?" Count on Taylor to ask the easy questions.

Lisa sighed, "The other gangs. Coil has been hitting the Empire wherever we leave an opening." Rachel stiffened at that, but went back to her still not very relaxed posture after a soft look from Lisa. "The ABB and Merchants haven't been kind either. Fact is that stealing their drugs and guns and money has weakened their ability to fight back. Taking down their capes has made them look weak. I get that none of us was paying attention, but in retrospect we should have seen this coming."

"What does that mean?" Brian almost yelled.

"I'm not saying its our fault."

"It sure fucking sounds like you're implying it. How the fuck were we meant to see this coming. Hell, how the fuck are they even doing this? We weakened them this much but they can pull off an attack on this scale?"

Lisa just shook her head. They stood together and listened to the sirens and screams and distant fighting and much closer moans...wait.

"You hear that?" Lisa looked like she was going to snap at him, then she looked thoughtful, then she sprinted for the bank. The rest of them trailing behind her.

The front of the building had been a shitty artsy fountain ringed by hedges in neat stone rows and benches of the same stone. All of it was shattered and levelled, but as Lisa crunched through the glass into the shattered lobby of the bank, he saw that one of the stone slabs had found it's way inside.

The ceiling had collapsed in several places, and one of them had the slab in amongst the rubble. Shifting his weight off his left, bare, foot, Alec tried to figure out why Lisa was scrambling at it. Then he spotted the pale hand poking out from beneath it and realised where the moans were coming from.

_'I guess the super hearing isn't quite back in order yet.'_ Which was still much better than what any normal person in that van would have gotten away with. He thought of the caged dogs again and shuddered.

As much to fight against that memory as anything else, Alec joined Lisa by the rubble and searched for a place to grip the massive piece of stone. Together they heaved and heaved and with their inhuman transformed strength, shifted it barely an inch into the air. Rachel standing off to the side with Judas -it was definitely Judas, probably- cradled in her arms and a scowl on her face.

Brian and Taylor added their efforts and they went from barely shifting it to lifting it slowly and steadily into the air. One end still braced on the ground, they could lever it up several feet. Revealed by their efforts were four bank employees, which was enough for him to look around the blasted remains of the lobby and realise that this was probably where the tellers' desks had been. Lucky break for the four of them, even if they were all bleeding at least a little, and one of the three women among them had a badly broken arm.

The survivors started babbling thanks and pleading and all kinds of shit. Alec just let Lisa handle that, too much effort. Especially when the lot of them seemed to have decided that they were heroes. Sure what they were doing made it an understandable mistake, but his villain's pride still stung. They'd need to rob this bank once it was fixed up.

Moving a little to the side, Alec tried to shift his grip to stop the stone digging into his palm quite so much, which was when everything went to shit. The end of the slab resting on the floor jerked an inch to the side and then it began to slide.

Grinding along the floor, already they were forced to take more of the weight and it was only mounting. They couldn't outright lift the burden, and the further it slid the more they were forced to drop it down. The huddled quartet began to scream and struggle, searching for a way out of the cage of debris before they were crushed. Alec could only crouch and try to throw himself into lifting with everything he had, even as Taylor swelled and grew in search of more strength but it wasn't quite enough.

It slipped a full foot along the floor at once, forcing them to drop it enough that the tellers were pressed between it and the floor. The one with the broken arm began to sob and then just like that it was over. Rachel grabbed the burden right alongside them and threw her own strength into the mix even as all of them swelled and grew ever so slightly. Out of the corner of his eye Alec could see Judas carefully laid out on the floor between Brutus and Angelica.

With just a hint of her power, they were able to take the full weight between them. This time they got it in the air and Alec immediately kicked a gap in the debris, "Crawl through right the fuck now!"

They didn't need telling twice.

Barely a minute later, the five of them let the stone slam to the ground, throwing dust into the air and shaking the floor beneath them. All of them sagged in place with the burden out of their hands, though only Alec went so far as to sit down on the floor.

Eh, they just didn't want to look weak in front of civvies. As if the traumatised group staring around at their workplace would even remember what they'd done after freeing them. Still, it was a good thing they'd done and that was good karma that they could put to great use with their next caper. They'd saved everyone they could and now all that was left was to run on home and hide while the heroes handled the Empire's tantrum.

So of course, that was when the sirens went from background noise to something rapidly approaching.

All of them sighed heavily at that, Brian actually huffed before grabbing a couple familiar duffel bags that he must have carried from the van to the bank. Which would save them some time, not that they'd need much of i-

Fear. Pumping through his veins and filling him with no reason for it

_"How many times do I need to tell you not to interrupt me Julian!"_

_That wasn't Jean-Paul's name, but then again Daddy never remembered his name. He just pointed at him an-_

_terror terror fear horror oh no oh please no stop stop stop scared I'm sorry daddy I please don't let it get me don't hurt me don't leave me alone where is it where is it where is it what is it I'm I please no no no no no no no no no_

Again Alec found himself with a heavy arm over his shoulder and a nice set of curves pressed against his sides. Which was the only thing keeping him from pissing himself as the feeling, that wasn't quite what his father's power felt like and he had to remember that, washed over him. He couldn't fight the fear, he could only feel it and try to focus on the feeling of safety that Rachel gave him along with it.

The others were looking unnerved as well. Then a nicely proportioned teenage girl in a white and gold costume floated down to them through the massive opening that the bomb had left in the front wall and ceilings of the bank. Fear poured off her and even the sight of the bike shorts she wore beneath her skirt couldn't distract Alec from the murder in her eyes. Even the arms wrapped around her neck were hard to pay attention to.

"You." Her voice was like death, if death was really pissed off. It at least seemed like she wasn't going to attack them, then she got closer to the ground and Panacea (in full costume) dropped from her back and hurried over to the injured tellers. At which point Victoria definitely got ready to attack.

Shockingly, it wasn't Lisa who stepped up to talk them out of this, but Brian. Their thinker was absorbed in her phone again. So their leader was left to step forward with hands raised and say, with only the barest tremble in his echoing voice, "This isn't the time to fight."

"Maybe not for you, it's looking pretty good for me." Glory Girl shot back. Alec would have rated the banter higher if half his brain wasn't trying to strangle the other half so the pounding terror would finally stop.

"We're not here to hurt anyone. We're trying to help."

She snorted. "Oh yeah, I'm going to fall for your bullshit again. What did you just happen to be passing by? You sick fucks are going to the Cage for this one."

"I'm telling the truth."

Glory Girl took a step forward, or more like she stomped hard enough to shake the floor and happened to have put her foot in front of her. Then a quiet voice sliced the tension out from under them all.

"H-he's not lying. They s-s-saved us." Said the women with the broken arm. Recently broken arm, Panacea was focusing on the other three and there was no more bone sticking out so she was probably all fixed up.

Their leader slowly lowered his hands. "Okay then, you see, we're here to help. Truce."

The hero didn't budge an inch. "You're not fooling me again with this shit, now surrender and take your beating."

She was glaring at one of their team in particular the entire time, and that line was enough to get her a response. "Are you seriously still holding a grudge over that?" Lisa snapped, looking up from her phone to do so.

"Over you pretending to take a little girl hostage? Yeah, yeah I'm planning to hold that grudge for a fucking long time."

"You were trying to break most of my fucking bones."

"And that makes it okay?!"

"It sure as shit factors in! Some of us have to find unconventional ways to fight back, but then you wouldn't know a damn thing about that would you, Glory Hole? You've never had to fight like a weakling, with your strength and your forcefield and as for your aura you've got some real nerve trying to go at me for being manipulative-" Lisa cut herself off and glared at the floor.

"What the fuck does that mean?"

"Will all of you shut up!" A reedy voice yelled over them. Panacea had joined the fray. "We're here to help people, so stop bickering and help me do that. You shitheads want a truce then that's how you prove it."

Looking around, there were several slow nods before the tension began to ease out of the room. At long last the flying hero eased off on her fucking Aura, enough that Alec could let go of Rachel and fucking breath again. Meanwhile Brian stepped forward, waving behind his back at Taylor when she started to step forward with him, and addressed the two heroes.

"I don't know what those sirens mean, but I'm not sure how much help ambulances will be. Everyone we found was dead or fairly easy to stabilise."

Panacea looked at him like he was something she'd stepped in. "How about you let me make those calls, and when we need to beat up an old lady I'll let you take over."

Before he could reply, Alec's attention was drawn by a weird little modulated chime coming from Lisa. More specifically, her phone. _'Hah, the hearing's back.'_

Normally he'd have let his eyes keep right on skimming over his scrawny -okay, maybe that insult was becoming a little too inaccurate, he'd need a new one soon- friend and that would be that. Only when Alec saw how pale her face had gone, he knew something had just gone horribly wrong even before she stopped walking.

That was a face he'd never seen before.

Not when they were up against unexpected fights. Not when they'd been trapped beneath multiple Empire capes. Not even when they stumbled across Glory Girl beating some poor fuck had Lisa looked quite that awful.

Beneath her mask she was pale and shaking and looked like she'd just fucked up worse than any time Alec had seen her.

"Ru- Taylor. Taylor I need you to listen to me." Their black-haired teammate stopped walking and looked back at Lisa, who continued before Panacea could bitch at them some more, "I've been hacking into the PRT feeds for more information, and I just got in...you need to stay calm, okay?"

"Did you just admit to hacking the PRT? We just called a truce and you..." Something about Lisa's face must have even made it through to the human wrecking ball. She shut up and stood still, even moving aside to give Taylor space as she walked up to Lisa. The dork looked terrified, which honestly scared Alec a little because Lisa was making no attempt to reassure her.

"That transmitter that Hookwolf was carrying, it was to signal that we were occupied. So that, fuck. I'm saying this all wrong. Taylor, you know that there was a PRT guard detail on your house. Your dad's house."

_'Oh no.'_

"Those guys just reported in," Taylor clamped a hand over her mouth and Lisa rushed to reassure her of a fear that Taylor had yet to voice, "Nobody's dead. Your dad wasn't killed...but Nocht and Abwehr broke through the PRT guard detail."

Taylor fell to her knees, shaking her head ever so slightly. Trying to deny the inevitable words.

"They took your dad."


	27. Coyote: 5

"So what?"

The words fell into a silence thick with pain. Taylor was frozen in place, kneeling and staring at nothing as she opened and closed her mouth around silent words. Alec could almost see the moment that she realised what had been said.

Her eyes widened, not in anger, but in shock. She looked lost, confused by the venom in the healer's voice.

Panacea didn't stop there, "There are injured people waiting. I'm not wasting their time on this crap."

Brian stepped forward to loom over the mouthy cow, only for her fellow hero to step between them. Glory Girl floated up until she was looking Brian right in the eye, then she rose an extra couple of inches and said, "You touch my sister and I break your everything." Alec's arm twinged and he resisted the urge to send her careening into the floor, "She's just telling the truth anyway, you've got no business getting angry."

"I didn't..." Taylor trailed off into hopeless silence, then suddenly glared at the heroes with fire in her eyes, "My dad didn't do anything wrong. How the fuck can you stand there and dismiss an innocent man being attacked?! Aren't you meant to protect him!?"

Glory Girl looked down at her and spoke, voice tight with fury, "Big fucking words from the girl who got him into danger in the first place. We're meant to protect innocents, not clean up after you."

The shock was back, now accompanied by the first signs of tears. Taylor made a choked noise, staggered to her feet, and managed to croak out, "But...I didn't mean-"

White and red robes swished and Panacea was stepping past her sister to poke a finger dangerously close to Taylor's face."You didn't mean to?! What the hell did you expect to happen? You attacked a fucking school you psycho. Didn't even bother with a mask, I guess you were proud to be trying to kill students. What about their parents huh?" Panacea's sneer was easy to spot even with the cloth that covered her mouth and nose.

"I-I'm the psycho?" Taylor took a step back from the sheer bile sent her way, then her face twisted into a snarl and she stomped forward to glare down at Panacea from inches away. "What the fuck do you know? What the fuck makes you and your sadist sister any better than me?!"

Lisa was wearing a scowl of gathering fury, Brian and Rachel were both shaking with anger, and Victoria Dallon had her fists clenched in a way that Alec remembered from the seconds before she broke his arm. Taylor and Amy Dallon both looked to be one more word away from a very high stakes slap fight, so -after lamenting that he was forced to be the adult for once- Regent pushed down his own rage and grasped for the detachment that had trapped him for so long.

Then he shoved himself between the two girls and pushed them apart. With an even voice he reminded them, "Weren't we about to help some people? Those sirens are right around the corner so you all might want to act like grown ups for a few minutes."

_'Urgh! How does Brian do this shit all the fucking time?'_ Were he given to introspection in these times, Alec might have considered that he was deeply unsuited to the role of mature adult.

Since he wasn't though, Alec just sauntered past his friends and the Dallon sisters. Right on cue there arrived a collection of ambulances, cop cars, PRT armoured vans, and even a fire truck. The whole lot screeched and bumped around the corner and parked as best it could on the area of road not broken or littered with obstacles.

For all that he hated most of them, Alec had still had a bunch of older and younger siblings. Even he knew not to turn around or speak to the teenage parahumans he'd left inside the bank, and sure enough after a few more seconds of tense silence they all started to catch up to him. He chanced a glance over his shoulder, but seeing Taylor with her face buried in Lisa's shoulder sent a shock of pain through his chest and he kept his eyes forward after that.

When one of the PRT vehicles opened up and vomited a squad of armoured agents, two of them carrying containment foam sprayers, it occurred to Alec that walking up to them by himself might not have ended well. Fortunately the Dallon sisters were beside them, despite the distance they kept from him and his friends it was easy to see that a truce had been struck. After a few moments of leaning his head to the side and talking in a whisper that most people wouldn't have been able to hear, the squad leader was given the all clear by the tinny voice on the other end of the line.

Brian took a deep breath and Grue stepped forward. Hand outstretched and his entire body wreathed in darkness. To his credit the PRT sergeant barely hesitated -even with the visible tails and ears on several of them- before shaking hands with him. His voice was softer than Alec would have expected, "I assume you and your people have struck a truce for the moment?"

"We were in the area." Grue's echoing voice was extra creepy when he really pushed the effect, but the sergeant kept his composure. "There are two skinheads over there, plus a van full of dogs that we were transporting to a shelter when the bomb hit, in case you think the gore is human. Obviously we helped everyone we could after the explosion."

"Obviously?" The sergeant's voice dripped scepticism.

"We're thieves not murderers. Believe us or don't, but we're here to help out."

Some time during the exchange, the two heroes had headed off to help out and left the villains to fend for themselves. Making it a relief when the sergeant finally nodded and turned to point at the shattered road. "We've got the injured from here, but if your team can clear the roads it would be a serious help. We just need enough space for one lane of vehicles to get through."

Grue nodded to Bitch, but continued talking as she grabbed her dogs and set off. "This isn't a major road though. Why do you need it open?"

That was the straw that broke the agent's perfect posture. The sergeant slumped a little, looking so weighed down that Alec almost expected the ground to crack beneath him. Well, to crack even more than it already was. "Those fucks bombed targets all over the city. People panicked and between that and the damage the main roads are all completely jammed. Then the fight between the Merchants and two of the Empire's capes spilled onto a road and people started abandoning their cars. Right now we're looking for any alternate routes that we can clear."

"Who are the Merchants fighting?"

"That wannabe Klan member, Forest, and some foreign cape that turns into sand and controls the stuff. Desert something I think she called herself. I-"

"What did you say?!" Tattletale cut in, jerking her head away from where she'd been whispering comfort to their quietly sobbing Runt, "Did you say foreign cape?"

Alec didn't miss the way that the sergeant's hand had gone to his weapon at the first shout. What a fragile thing was the trust of a former foe. Still, the sergeant replied promptly enough, "Yeah, the Empire called in reinforcements from Europe. That big group of Nazi villains. I can never pronouce their name."

Tattletale had visibly tuned out as soon as he said 'Europe' and was muttering frantically, "That explains it, how they could do something like this and expect to survive, they've supplemented their numbers, meaning-"

Blonde hair whistled through the air as she sucked in breath to scream, "Form a perimeter right now! They'll be here any-!"

Too late, Alec realised that there was no possible way that hair could be making a continuous whistling noise. He looked up at almost the exact same time that a hunk of concrete the size of a small car dropped out of the smoky sky and crushed the PRT vehicle like a discarded can. The shockwave knocked the agents down like bowling pins and stirred up a wave of ash and stinging dust.

As he dived for a nearby wreck, Regent was vaguely surprised to think, _'I hope there wasn't anyone still inside.'_

People were yelling, everything from panicked screams from civilians and the less hardened emergency responders, to calmly shouted instructions from firemen and paramedics, to the harsh commands of armed police and PRT agents. Then a single voice boomed over all of them in a synthesised roar.

"This is Nocht! Stand down or be slain! You have ten seconds to comply!"

Even through voice modulation Regent could still hear a German accent. Or maybe it was a synthesised voice and it had just been made by sampling Germans. Either way it was almost too perfect a match for the...well he could only really describe it as a mecha-Nazi.

The bipedal robot towered above them all, at least three times a man's height, and looked bulky enough to make Regent rethink his estimation of Rune's lifting capacity. The robed telekinetic and a woman in a tightly-fitted brown shirt and a skull mask that he vaguely recognised as Long Knife, were standing between the suit's legs. They stayed where they were as it stepped down onto the road, doing even more damage just by putting its weight onto the surface.

Its legs were pillar-thick, clawed, and heavily plated with armour, while the body looked like the kind of egg that a tank might lay. There were no arms but even as Regent peered out at it from behind a wrecked car, several blocky pods popped out of the sides and spun to face the law enforcement facing off against it.

"Eight...Seven...Lock on complete."

Some of the cops and most the agents were smart enough to hurl themselves into cover. The rest were caught off guard, maybe by the fake countdown, maybe just by expectations of less violence. Either way, the micro-missiles that streaked out of the suit's pods caught most of them full in the chest and detonated in a transparent burst that tossed the victims around like rag dolls. Hopefully it included some kind of knock-out device because none of the targets were moving.

A cloud of darkness Regent hadn't noticed dispersed to reveal the squad whose leader had been talking to them. He began to shout some kind of orders but a primal scream shut him up immediately.

Unnatural feeling washed over Regent for the second time that hour, but this time it wasn't fear. He felt only admiration and inspiration, distracting him from pain and drawing him like a moth to a flame towards the streak of white that hit the mecha-Nazi. The suit rang like a gong and it staggered back, forcing Rune to take to the air again while Long Knife leapt from her platform.

Through the haze of unnatural optimism, Regent felt only a mild sense of worry when he noticed Long Knife was sprinting straight towards him. Then Tattletale yelled something and Glory Girl roared again and the artificial emotions vanished. Leaving only his very real emotions of terror at the historically nonsensical but highly dangerous woman that was vaulting his cover.

His sceptre was still in the damn van, so Regent could only lash out with his power. He felt her nervous system humming with energy and yanked some of it off course just in time for the knife she threw at him to clatter across the street instead of skewering him. Then he did it again, the violent twitch of her thigh meant her kick dented the car instead of smashing his ribs. Eyeing the damage she did to the metal frame gave him a very good idea of what to do next.

Regent was already up and sprinting away from her when he heard Bitch's yell, "Down!" Immediately he dropped into a clumsy roll, not bothering to think whether she might have intended the warning for someone else.

The -vaguely familiar- knife that shot over him, coming from where Long Knife's miss had thrown it, inclined Regent to think the warning was meant for him after all. Bitch was already on Angelica and being trailed by Brutus, both of them the size of cars, with a bundle tied to her chest that could only be Judas.

Somewhere to the side, Regent was vaguely aware of another battle raging. Grue's darkness chasing Rune through the sky while Tattletale and the PRT agents alternated dodging lumps of concrete with taking potshots at the evasive cape. A flicker of light in front of him put an end to his attention on other fights and he barely snapped out with his power in time to keep another knife from killing Bitch. Then Long Knife reached out and made a beckoning motion and when he turned around of course the damn knife was coming back.

Steel flickered in the light of fires and Regent froze. He had no idea if jarring Long Knife would change the course of the blade, but he couldn't use his powers on the damn knife and if he yelled to Bitch it would already be too la-

An idea hit and he was in motion before he could consider whether it was a good one. Angelica was just a dog controlling a giant fleshy meat mech. Which meant there were still plenty of nerves for him to reach out and strum at the last possible instant.

A tail of bone and exposed muscle lashed at the air and shattered the delicate blade. Instead of looking at Bitch and discovering whether or not she was furious at him for using his power on her dogs, Regent kept it a surprise and focused on Long Knife. The bad news was that he found her already drawing another knife from one of the dozen or so sheaths at the back of her belt. The good news was that Runt had pulled herself together and was sneaking up on the crazy woman with the super strength and the rough telekinesis and the shirt that made no fucking sense alongside her name.

Before Runt could strike, there was another streak of white, this time being propelled by a bluish grey energy beam that slammed Glory Girl into the asphalt and then shoved her a few feet into it. Those fighting stopped for a moment and the Bay-native villains stared at the almost casual defeat of someone every last one of them feared. Nocht took the opportunity to announce, "Runt, or Taylor Hebert if you prefer. You will stand down and intervene in this fight no more, or your father will die painfully."

Runt wore her pain and uncertainty plainly for all to see. Claws rippled on her hands and Regent wondered if she might try to call a bluff, but she was too smart to try that with a fucking Nazi. Taylor stepped back from the fight and stood on the edge of the battlefield with Amy, both of them looking on fearfully.

Nocht laughed, "As for your little friends..."

Tattletale was shouting before he could say another word, "If you think we give that much of a shit about some newbie dad then you're dreaming. Don't think that hostage will work against anyone other than Runt."

Regent hoped that the dork was smart enough to see through the obvious lie, though to judge by the hateful look that Glory Girl favoured Tattletale with as she climbed out of her personalised crater, the hero was exactly as dumb as he'd suspected. Or maybe just really fucking honest.

Honestly, he kind of wanted to see how she'd handle their entire team standing down and leaving her to fight alone. Since she was hardly dominating against just one of the three.

Whether or not he believed their cold-blooded bluff, Nocht found himself too occupied with Glory Girl's next charge to keep talking.

Battle resumed with Rune and Long Knife both launching projectiles in a rapid-fire flurry. Bitch swept Regent up as she passed him and had Angelica and Brutus curl around them to block the knives. Meanwhile their friends got a lot less lucky. Neither cape was hit by the rain of high-speed pebbles Rune showered them with, but both of the agents with containment foam canisters on their back were hit.

Peeking out through a gap in the great shield of dog, Regent could hear Long Knife circling them in search of an opening. He could also see the rapidly expanding mounds of pinkish orange foam that stunk of air freshener and had already snared the remaining PRT agents. Most of all though, he could both see and hear the leader of the Undersiders sprinting towards him and Bitch and yelling, "Swap!"

A moment's confusion, then he got it. Then he realised that it was so simple that he would have to pretend he'd thought of it sooner. Then his mouth finally caught up to his thoughts and said to Bitch, "Time to stop hiding."

Her grin would have terrified small children, in fact it even made him feel a little uncomfortable. As he leapt through the gap opening between Brutus and Angelica, and ran straight towards Long Knife, Alec finally realised that having his feelings back would probably make horror movies a lot better as well. _'I should make a list of the ones I want to watch.'_

Long Knife was on his left, rushing towards him with a blade in each hand and a grin beneath her upper-face mask. Then a cloud of darkness hit her like a freight train and Alec kept right on running. On a whim he reached out with one hand, trailing it through the darkness. He couldn't hear the slap of palm on palm, but he felt the high five just fine.

Ahead of him was Rune up on her platform, gloating to judge by her body language, and there was Tattletale, between him and Rune, hiding behind an uprooted slab of asphalt as she reloaded. Most important of all though, there was a PRT agent who had lost their grip on a launcher, and that was as good as Christmas in Regent's book.

He ignored the woman's voice that yelled at him to give it back as he scooped it up. He ignored the yelling behind him as Grue gave Bitch directions to pass on to her dogs. All he had space for was his heart full of singing dancing glee at what he was carrying.

_'If only these things didn't all have tracking chips in them.'_

Rune had noticed him, but so had Tattletale and while they were both grinning it was the latter one that Regent cared about. Rune might be smiling because she thought he was weak, but Tattletale would only be smiling if she knew his plan and liked it.

Pulling the trigger, Regent's only thought was that he'd have to rub that fact in at a later date. Rune snorted and sent a chunk of her perch to intercept the grenade. It exploded into a huge blob of containment foam and completely blocked her view of him and Tattletale. Just for a moment. Which was more than enough time for him to leap at his teammate like he was trying to kick her in the gut.

Instead of sinking into her stomach though, his foot was caught in both her hands, one cupped under the other. He sunk into a crouch, balanced on one leg with the ease that only a tail could grant. Then Lisa threw him and he leapt from her hands.

Two months earlier, that manoeuvre would've maybe sent him just barely high enough to clamber over a wall.

Now he soared. Up past the blob of foam that was starting to fall. Up as he brought the launcher to his shoulder and grinned fit to make the animal he took his traits from proud. Up into view of Rune and the look of utter and total shock that he would treasure for as long as he lived.

The launcher kicked once, twice, thrice, and Rune's platform had a new topping.

Which was about when he looked down and realised that he wasn't soaring any more. His stomach lodged itself behind his ears and Regent fell out of the air without a single shred of dignity in his flailing, shrieking body.

The blob of containment foam hit the ground with a soft _thmp_, Rune's foam covered perch slammed into the ground with a mighty _thumph_, and Regent bounced off the top of a wrecked car with a quiet, "Oouuuch."

It wasn't long before the regeneration once again proved it's worth. Shortly after his body stopped feeling quite so broken, a gloved hand was thrust into view. Following it up to the rest of a person, Regent was caught for a moment in how strange she looked. Tattletale wore her hair in the familiar loose tumble of her cape persona, and she had her utility belt...but everything else was pure Lisa. Casual clothes, now torn and dirtied beyond repair, light make-up, even her shoes were sneakers instead of Tattletale's boots.

He shook off the concussion a moment later and took Tattletale's hand. She heaved him up with her own inhuman strength and they both got a good look at Grue and Bitch standing over Long Knife's unconscious form. Judging by the badly broken legs, Regent was betting that she'd gotten herself trampled by one of the dogs.

The four of them shared grins despite the distance between them. Then a voice that Regent was rapidly growing to hate stripped all the humour from the air.

"Hmm, it seems that my American sisters-in-arms are not up to the task. Unfortunately that means I can no longer waste time on you my dear." Nocht spoke lightly to the hero still pounding on his smooth shell.

The probable tinker was clearly strong, any idiot would know that just from him being chosen to sent to another continent as reinforcements. Except until he saw Nocht's mech was completely undamaged after an extended fight with Glory Girl, Regent hadn't really understood just how strong he was.

Speaking of whom, the white clad cape was dusty and sweating, but definitely hadn't given up. She rolled her shoulders and hung in the air as she clenched her fists until every knuckle was white. Glory Girl hissed, "We'll see who the waste is." Then Tattletale went rigid with tension beside him and Regent already knew what was coming.

With the same straightforward honesty that she had always lived by, Victoria Dallon shot towards Nocht, fists leading the way. Even when a nozzle, and two more square pods popped out of the front of the mech, even when Tattletale began to scream, "Stop!" the hero didn't slow her charge.

The nozzle sprayed something that looked almost like blue oil, coating her from head to toe without effect. Then one pod lit up with muzzle flashes and the other zapped her with a continuous bolt of lightning that made the oil glow and spark.

For no reason that Regent could think of, the invincible cape screamed until her voice broke and tumbled to the ground, twitching and spasming and completely unable to move.

Nocht's voice was almost conversational, speaking over Panacea frantic shouts, "Electroconductive fluid, it'll hold the charge in contact with your skin until long after we're done here. I'm afraid that someone with such a critical weakness as losing their invincibility when hit by a strong force was really never going to match me."

The mech stomped over to the fallen hero and kicked her without a scrap of hesitation. The oil coating her lit up with sparks and she screamed weakly, "What's the matter dear? No more spirited declarations? In any case, that's one hero taken care of. I believe her defeat means it's time for your own mission, Long Knife."

"Hmh." The laugh was small and weak, but the moment he heard it Regent knew something was about to go terribly wrong. All eyes except Tattletale's went to Long Knife, the supposedly unconscious cape now rising as best she could with two broken legs. Meanwhile their thinker already had eyes on her target, the healer running towards her sister without a thought for anything else in the world.

Before any of them could do a damn thing, metal flashed through the air towards Panacea.

Taylor, having been running just a few steps behind, tried to shove her aside...far too late. The knife took Amy Dallon in the side of the chest and she crumpled to the ground. Staring down at her, Taylor completely missed the second and third knives that spun through the air, barely a foot above the ground, on their way to finish Panacea.

Both of them dropped out the air just a few feet from their target, the power cut off by Grue ramming his boot into Long Knife's jaw. The Nazi went limp for real this time and Taylor looked up with a dazed expression.

"Oh dear, these Americans are just so damned unreliable. Though I suppose with a knife in her lung she'll bleed to death soon enough." The Nazi paid no mind to the almost animal shrieks coming from Victoria Dallon. He spoke about her sister's imminent death like he was discussing the weather. Then he turned his attention to the Undersiders.

Regent barely stopped himself from taking a step back. Despite it's simple, almost comical shape, the mech Nocht was using had just taken down one of the Bay strongest brutes without so much as a dent. The others stood their ground though, and he found he could do no less. A warm feeling like golden chains held him in place. Whatever it was he didn't recognise it which, given his experiences in the last few weeks, ruled out; anger, happiness, sadistic glee, amusement, hunger, grief, and guilt. Just all the other ones still to figure out.

While he'd been pondering the state of his mind, Runt had stepped forward. "Please, I can heal, just let me heal her and I'll do whatever you want. I'll go with you I swear."

"What!"

"No!"

"Taylor-!"

"Dumbass!"

Every one of the Undersiders snapped at her dumbass attempt at sacrificing herself. Regent was surprised to realise that even he had joined in.

Again came the synthesised German voice and now he was absolutely certain he hated it. "My dear child, since you've proven such an annoyance, I'll take you whether you like it or not. Though you should know, it was not our task to find you. My unit was ordered to find the healer and end her. We simply happened to stumble across you and thought to accomplish two tasks. You have a saying about birds and stones, do you not?"

Bitch growled and unslung the bundle across her chest. She hooked Judas's cradle over one of Brutus' spikes and sent the dog away with a slap on it's flank. Then she took three steps towards the mechanised Nazi and said, "You should have just fucked with them, now we'll hurt you. Bad."

"A wild girl! How perfectly charming."

_'Yep, yep I never want to hear this smug prick again.'_

"Well wild girl, let me explain in simple terms. That girl," He pointed to Glory Girl, now trying to crawl towards her sister despite barely being able to move, "She is very strong. She hit me many times. Me no hurt." Then he pointed at Bitch, "You hit me...well what do you think it'll accomplish."

"Plenty." Tattletale entered the conversation, pushed forward by Grue, and for the first time since they'd been blown up, she looked like her usual self. Standing casually and smiling the smile of someone who knows something their enemy would very much like them not to know.

"Ah, you would be Tattletale. Now your power isn't exactly on the record, and Kaiser has informed us that Runt there can grant others the physically boosts she displayed at her school, so what exactly do you-"

"You're not just a Tinker. You're a Thinker. You see weaknesses in any defence, am I right."

There was a slight pause, then "That didn't sound like a question, and I do hate being interru-"

"Well I'm a Thinker too. Which is how I know that you're full of shit. It's how I know that your voice modulator is tuned to remove stress from your voice. Which is definitely needed right now. Tell me, just how much damage did she do to you?"

There was anger in his voice this time, a crack in the composure, "My defence is perfect."

"There is no perfect defence, at least no single perfect defence. Which is why you didn't build any such thing." Nocht said nothing and Tattletale kept going with her smile getting wider and wider, "You built an adaptive defence and made sure it would always react just right. Moving force field generators and density boosters into position for every punch she threw. It makes you look invincible, I'll give you that, but I already know how to beat you and-" Tattletale held up her phone as the rest of their phones buzzed and beeped for attention, "-I've just told all my friends.

Alec glanced at the screen of his phone and wondered if 'Bz Bz, left outer thigh' was a bluff or not.

"Sorry but even with the bacteria she's tweaked to slow the bleeding, Panacea won't last much longer. So you see, we haven't got the time to waste on you either. Piss off or we'll break your toy."

There was a long silence. Long enough that Regent almost wondered if the bluff might work. It had to be a bluff. What kind of plan was 'Bz Bz'? And why was Bitch still staring at her phone?

Nocht's voice crackled and spat, "You think you've seen right through me. You think you've thought it all out, don't you you little whore?" The calm façade was completely gone...then it returned all at once. "Dear little Runt, if you want your father to see another day, kill your friends. Now."

Runt, the quiet little dork who'd stumbled to their doorstep and made them dinner and given him back the joy and pain of life, she didn't move a muscle. Instead she quietly said, "You said not to intervene."

"What? I said-"

"You could have told me to stand still and let you kill me, and I've probably have done it. So if I'm such an annoyance why didn't you?" Runt answered her own question, "Because you don't want me dead. You want to recruit me. All this isn't just about showing the Empire's strength, no, Kaiser wants my power to turn his footsoldiers into what we are. I guess he'll want that even more now that Hookwolf has seen what we've been hiding."

Runt stepped forward, closer to them, to her team; and the giant mech stepped back. "Yes m-my dear. We've heard all about the huge monsters you can turn people into. I suppose you might even be able to threaten me with that much power, and your friend's knowledge. Which doesn't make your father any less my hostage so do as you're fucking told!"

"Bullshit." She lifted her head to glare up at the mech and Alec hoped fervently that she'd gotten lucky enough to look directly at a camera. "Bullshit."

Runt didn't give him time to speak, "You know my dad once taught me something. Something I guess I forgot for a while." It had come on so slowly, so subtly, that it was only in that moment when his t-shirt split at the seams that Regent recognised the familiar sensation creeping through him. Grue and Rachel were growing too, but the other two members of their team stayed exactly the same.

"He taught me about threats, Nocht. He taught me that you should never ever make one that you aren't ready to follow through on."

"I'll kill him!"

"Bullshit." Interjected Grue, "Kaiser won't burn his leverage over her to save you. Now here's a real threat. Surrender right now, or we break both your arms."

A pod popped out of the mech, pointing right at Runt, and Regent exploded out of his clothes. Fur flowed along his body, rich with sparks of static and...oh.

Grue charged before his body had finished forming, clumsy and straightforward. Nocht sidestepped their leader and switched the aim of his pod to unleash a barrage of missiles against Grue's back.

Regent didn't spare a thought for their most well armoured member. Instead he rushed forward on all fours and grabbed one of the mech's legs. His weight should have immobilised it, but there was a sound of shifting metal from inside the leg and Regent knew he was about to get shaken off somehow. Which was his cue to press a palm to the 'thigh' of the leg and push his power into it with everything he had.

Lightning crackled along his fur and for an instant he could almost feel something like nerves running through the suit. Filled with a conductive fluid that he pumped his power into with almost no success. Then he was being kicked away to tumble down the street hoping the rescue workers weren't in his way and catching a glimpse of the suit now bristling with pods and spikes and tubes sticking out of every surface.

Bitch attacked before he could get his bearings, but when he asked later he heard that she'd rammed two of her bone spurs into seam between the pods and the suit, and then she'd torn a hole all the way through it.

He did manage to see her reaching in and pulling out a struggling figure. A thin limbed man with greasy blonde hair, who she had dumped in front of Runt like yesterday's garbage.

By the time he walked back over to them, he was already moaning in agony. Both his arms broken cleanly. Regent peered at his nerves and shoved a lance of power through them, living the cape mute and shaking on the ground.

Taylor had rushed over to Panacea the moment the fight was done, and he could already see a big brown labrador where the healer had been. One wearing a white robe.

Instead of butting in over there, Alec wandered over to Glory Girl as casually as a multi-ton werewolf could hope to. She was still shaking and straining, covered in what might as well be a liquid taser. Her face was streaked with tears, but as she stared across the battlefield at her sister, Victoria Dallon was smiling through the pain.

The massive furry hand on her chest didn't seem all that welcome. Not until he squinted and pulled with his thoughts and sparks rushed up his arm to set his fur to standing even more on end. A moment later she was slowly heaving herself to her feet and even shot him a grateful smile before she started stumbling as fast as she could towards her sister.

Watching her, Alec felt a spark of jealousy. Then a roaring flood of it. All those sibling and would any of them ever care so much about him? Not fucking likely.

Still, he focused on the other things he felt as he watched what he'd never have. All the nice things that he could feel again. Even if he still didn't know what they were.

The look in Victoria's eyes when Taylor finally turned Amy back to a human, the way she sobbed and babbled apologies as she hurled herself at her sister while the smaller girl was still trying to get her robe the right way round. It filled his chest with a kind of aching lightness. A good ache. Filling his lungs and pooling tears in his eyes. That was the kind of thing he wanted to think of the transformation giving him back.

All of which drained into baffled curiosity when Amy Dallon shoved her sister away like she was on fire. The healers eyes were wide and panicked and she looked...like someone who'd just almost died for the first time. It was odd that she was so clearly angry at Victoria, but Alec reminded himself that most people didn't shrug off danger as easily as combat-experienced capes did.

Plus, he figured he'd probably be mad too if his invincible big sister let someone stab him. Hard to blame the healer for it.

Victoria tried again to pull her sister into a hug, and was pushed away again. The confident hero looked like a kicked puppy, but instead of caving Amy grit her teeth and looked even angrier. She spun in a whirl of back-to-front robes and barked at Rachel, "Your dog. The hurt one." Then followed the violent supervillain without any sign of fear, despite Rachel currently being in the form of a hulking werewolf monster.

Hell, Amy had almost looked relieved as she followed Rachel off to wherever Brutus had gone...leaving the rest of the Undersiders standing around with Glory Girl...it was an awkward few minutes before Rachel returned.

Alone.

Well, alone except for the newly healed Judas and her other two dogs.

"Wha-where'd Amy go?" Victoria didn't sound much like Glory Girl any more. She sounded confused and scared.

Alec almost reached out to comfort her, but then he saw Taylor out the corner of his eye. Brian was leaning his considerable bulk over her, using one hand to give her the closest thing to hug that he could manage while several times her size. All the while she sobbed quietly into his palm.

_'...We've got our own shit to deal with right now.'_

Now that the battle was over, the urgency of their situation was coming back to him. To them all.

The rescue workers seemed to have the injured well in hand, and the PRT sergeant was busily foaming villains and de-foaming his agents. Now that he had a look, Alec realised Rachel had even mostly finished clearing the road before the fight started.

So he didn't step forward to comfort Victoria Dallon. Instead he watched her fly off in the direction Rachel pointed, and then he waited while Lisa and Taylor were boosted too. Brian used the time to grab their stuff from the van, whatever wasn't ruined or couldn't be safely left for the authorities to find.

Then they began to run. No longer bothering to hide, not with the city on fire and a bunch of cops having gotten front row seats. They headed for their lair by the fastest route they could, bounding across rooftops and leaping streets jammed full of cars. Even with the sounds of battle still clear for everyone to hear, they drew plenty of stares and screams and camera flashes.

The secret to the Undersiders new strength was out. Their newest member was known to all.

Alec had expected to be afraid when they finally lost the element of surprise. Yet again his emotions surprised him, bubbling up not as fear but as savage joy. He didn't understand until they creeping across rooftops in sight of the lair, and he stopped to stare at the Bay, shining free beneath the afternoon sun...and it hit him.

_'With everything out in the open, there's no more reason for us to hold back.'_


	28. Coyote: 6

It was a good door. Alec was almost upset that he didn't help the nerds make it...no, wait, that wasn't true at all.

Though he was right about it being well built. The reinforcement to the roof around it held up with barely a bend beneath their weight, and when Taylor yanked the roof hatch open there wasn't even a squeak. Especially impressive given that he had expected her to tear it off its hinges.

As large as they'd made it, they were still limited to single file with Rachel's full boost in them all. Obviously Taylor was the first one to swing through the hole. Alec managed to sneak through right after her, grabbing one of the heavy bars they'd secured to the ceiling and allowing his full weight to hang from the repurposed factory equipment.

Before he'd made it halfway along their oversized monkey bars, Taylor was already dropping off them onto the loft floor. Which left a sizeable dent in the floorboards where she landed. Normally he'd have leapt at the chance to point out how mad Brian would be with the rough landing, but even he could see that it wasn't the time.

Plus, Aisha had leapt a few feet into the air at the sudden impact behind her. Brian's little sister was sprawled across the coffee table without a shred of dignity and that was hilarious enough all by itself. No need to torment the dork for bonus laughs.

Already Taylor's frame was withering and decaying. The signs of Rachel withdrawing her power were familiar to all of them by now, fur and skin going thin and papery and shrinking tight against muscles that were already breaking down. Beneath the surface the bones would already be weakened enough to splinter under the lingering weight, leaving no real obstacles for someone trying to dig their way out.

Alec landed much more softly than Taylor had done and immediately felt the strength leave his body. There was a tremble through the fleshy heap that his teammate had become, then Alec saw nothing but a cage of flesh and bone. His body was wrapped in a soft membrane, still pulsing with the dying heartbeat of his boosted form. Around him were only the crunches and cracks of an impossibly large body falling apart. Once the pseudo-burial had scared the shit out of him, but after weeks of it, he just found it boring.

After an eternity -a minute and a half- the sac around him began to dry out, which meant...

His fist went through the mound of dead flesh like...well, the closest thing he could think of was warm lumpy pudding. Shoving his other hand through, Alec dug himself out and tried not to breath in the smell. Soon it would all dry to a little pile of ash and dust for them to sweep away, but until then it stunk like...

_'I'm really struggling with the similes today.'_

It stunk bad. End of story. He yanked himself clear and dove for one of the towels draped over the bannister for just such a situation. While he wrapped it around his waist, Alec got a good look down at the factory floor where the other three had all chosen to turn back, prioritising an easy clean-up over speed.

Alec's stomach declared its protests with a mighty _grrwwl_ and he headed for the food place. Through the haze of hunger he was vaguely aware of Taylor rushing ahead of him in her weird fur body-stocking form, nabbing a loaf of bread, and then sprinting for the bathroom. Well, he wasn't a crazy person like her. He had his priorities in order, first a proper meal and then he could do the boring cleanliness stuff.

"Dude, you reek." Snorted Aisha, standing just a few feet to his right and looking him up and down with something in her eyes. Something he liked. Something that made him want to-

Claws dug into the meat of his left thigh and Alec shot her a smile as he walked past. "That's rich coming from you. This whole loft reeks like a locker room."

"No it doesn't, the only smell up here is from your fucking meat suits."

He'd made it to the kitchen, placing the counter comfortably between him and the beautiful girl with the sweat damp clothes that clung to her just- He dug the claws deeper before the memories could hit. Guilt made him feel sick and he needed food if they were heading out again. Not that he let any of it show on his face or in his voice, "Who do you think you're fooling? Not only do you look like you went for a run, I can still see Dance Dance Parahuman XII playing behind you."

Aisha's yelp made him chuckle, then laugh from deep in his belly; while he dug out a whole roast chicken with some potato salad and she scrambled to turn off the spectacle of an animated Narwhal twerking enthusiastically. His admiring whistle turned into a discontented moan when the image went black. Just in time for Brian to come up the stairs in a towel of his own and give Alec a completely baffled look.

Since it was a confused look and not an 'I'm about to murder you for daring to look at my sister' look, Alec remained confident in his poker face. Except where Rachel and Lisa were concerned but they cheated so it didn't count.

The team's thinker pounded up the stairs right behind Brian and all but teleported to her laptop. By the time Rachel carefully climbed up to the loft, Judas cradled to her chest like a very hairy baby, Lisa was already typing furiously at what looked like password screens. The official government kind that got very upset if you weren't meant to be on them. Not that she was triggering any of the scary pop-ups.

A deep breath pulled the scent of fear into his lungs. It wanted to infect him too, to spread to his heart and hands and make them tremble and race, or would it be race and tremble? Either way he refused to allow it. Instead Alec finished grabbing as much food as he could carry and began to cart the whole lot over to the planning table, carrying a particularly meaty chicken leg in his mouth.

"Hey, don't put that down over here! I need space!" Lisa snapped at him, and was ignored appropriately. There was a particularly loud smack of the enter key, then she whirled to yell at him and found Brian standing between the two of them.

"Lisa, you need to get cleaned up, change, and eat. I don't care what order it's in, but we all need to get our strength back. Understand?" He was using his leader voice, for once Alec didn't hate it. Even Lisa bit off whatever mean shit she'd been about to say and settled for a terse nod. Taking the almost victory, Alec retreated further down the table and got busy filling his poor stomach.

Then Taylor ran back into the room, hair wet, a t-shirt and sweatpants hastily pulled on, and everything went to shit.

Well not immediately. Immediately she shot over to the table, tore off several handfuls of food and attempted to eat and ask Lisa and Brian something, all at the same time. After a few disgusting noises and almost spitting bread in Brian's face, she remembered herself and blushed heavily, turning away to swallow the fistful of food in her mouth. The instant that was done though, she was standing inches from the two of them and demanding answers.

"How do we find him? Lisa, do you know if he's okay? Do we have a plan Brian? Do you need my help coming up with something? How long before...?" She trailed off and the shy uncertain dork was back, "Um, I mean, if you guys are okay with helping me...I guess I should have asked that first."

Heavy hands grasped her shoulders and pushed back until she was staring up at their owner. Alec had to admit that Brian, boring nerd that he was, looked heartbreakingly sincere in that moment. "No, you don't need to ask. Ever. We're a team and that means-"

"That you do anything that Were-Carrie asks you to?" Aisha spat. Every word dripped with venomous scorn. She stood rigid and shaking, glaring at Taylor and speaking to her brother.

Before anyone could say a word, she was speaking again, almost shouting, "I've kept quiet about it. I haven't said a word about that tramp batting her eyelashes at you every five seconds. But no fucking more! Not if she's dragging you into her pathetic problems at a time like this! And you're telling her she doesn't even need to ask!"

Standing on the sidelines, mouth still full of potatoes and gravy, Alec had no fucking idea what to do. By the look on her face, Lisa knew exactly what to do and was about to get up from her chair and do it when Brian stepped into the middle of things once again.

There was thunder on his face, a gathering storm that his sister either dismissed, or didn't even notice.

"I can't believe that you of all people would fall for this shit! A manipulative slut shows you some attention and you fall over yourself to get yourself killed?! Haven't you seen the news?! Maybe looked outside!? The Empire is going to war Brian! You aren't throwing yourself out there for some skinny little whore's worthless-!"

_slap_

Of everyone that Alec had expected to hit her, Taylor had been the last one on the list. Except maybe behind a random teleporter. Even that seemed more likely than the dork slapping her. Taylor had shown Aisha nothing but patience and respect for weeks, but now she looked ready to rip the shorter girl's throat out.

Aisha didn't seem to believe it any more than he did. Holding her cheek and looking up at Taylor like she'd never seen her before. Then her features hardened again and she turned to Brian. "Are you just going to let her hit me? Do something already!"

The leader of the Undersiders walked forward until he was towering over her, only then did Alec see her confidence start to crack.

"Bri-"

"What the fuck is wrong with you Aisha? This isn't the time for you to throw a damn tantrum."

She looked confused. Like she wasn't quite sure what was going on, or how it all worked. It took a few tries before she got a word out of her mouth, "But-"

"No. No, I can't..." Brian slumped, his anger draining away as he rubbed at his eyes with one hand and used the other to point off over her shoulder. "Just get the hell out of my sight."

She plastered a fake grin across her face and said, "Hey, bro, th..." He'd turned his back on her, and against that wide wall her voice faded away to nothing. The others got back to discussing important things, or so Alec assumed, but he couldn't take his eyes off the girl slumping over to the couches.

Rachel was sprawled out on one of them, gnawing at a ham bone and stroking Judas. When Aisha came close she literally growled at her, not stopping until she got the message and headed off for the stairs down to the factory floor instead.

There was only one thing that Alec wanted to do. One impulse that rang out over all the idle distractions tat called for his attention. It was the one thing that he couldn't do. Not with his feelings bubbling over, making him ache at the sight of her slinking away, making him burn to yell at Brian even as his arm tugged itself towards Taylor and a comforting hug.

He couldn't...except that was bullshit. He was just scared to do it...

_'Fuck that.'_

Food was tossed onto the table and the looks his team gave him as he rushed for the stairs were ignored. As were the stairs, Aisha was already on the ground floor so he needed to be too. Hopping the rail was a much faster way to get there.

Slamming into the floorboards hard enough to have broken any normal human's legs, Alec stumbled a few steps before he came to a halt just a few steps away from...

_'Holy shit she's beautiful.'_

Tears had shattered the usual cocky grin, tracking mascara down her face and, and, she still looked incredible. Not nearly as good as when she was smiling though. Whatever he'd been thinking before, making her smile was definitely the most important thing to do.

Pity that she immediately started to yell at him, "What the hell do you want?!"

"Uh." _'Fuck, don't say "you", do not say it!'_

"You come to yell at me too? Gonna defend that bitch, or did my brother already do enough of that?"

"...I don't get it. Taylor's a dork, and kinda pathetic sometimes, but she's nice enough, especially to you." Alec cursed his mouth and tried to make it stop spilling out his thoughts, it didn't listen. "She's obviously been trying to make you feel at home ever since you started hanging out here."

"Oh yeah? She's making me feel so fucking at home. Trying to get my brother killed so she can, what, steal some nicer earrings? Go attack another bunch of schoolgirls?"

_'...Oh.'_

"You don't know. Of course you don't know."

"Know what."

Alec took a deep breath, trying to plan out a way to break it to Aisha that she'd just been a colossal asshole. Then he realised that he had no idea how to be that tactful and went with ripping off the band aid. "Taylor's dad was kidnapped. We're trying to plan a way to get him back from the Empire."

He didn't dare to look at Aisha's face at first, when he did it was to find her frozen. Not a twitch, not a mumble. She just stood and stared at him for the best part of a minute, then she collapsed to her knees with the slow inevitability of a falling tree. Arms wrapped around her legs, she smacked her head gently against her knees, then again, then again, and again, and again. Harder each time until she was all but blacking her own eyes.

His arms were around her before he could think to stop. Before he could second guess the reaction he might have. Before his mind had even processed the idea. Alec simply saw her in pain and found himself moving to stop it. Holding her head still and steady against his own. Close enough for him to breathe her in.

The rush of guilt that he'd been expecting...just wasn't there. Instead the scent of her filled him with something warm, not hot, warm. It made him feel lighter, bubbling up into his head and abruptly deciding to cut off his ability to put words in the right order in favour of filling his thoughts with the memory of that cocky smile she'd shot his way so many times already.

He really wanted to see it again.

"I've been a real dickbag, huh?"

"..."

"Shit, I should have checked what was going on first. Taylor really loves her dad, doesn't she?"

"..."

"I wonder what that's like? I mean I'd leave mine to die, I think Brian might actually send the Empire a thank you card...which might be why he's so eager to help..."

"..."

"Fuck. Okay, I can fix this. Thanks Alec, you're not so bad."

Her scent pulled away and it was all he could do not to follow it like a dog after a bone. Which was not a good word in this context, and oh fuck she was looking at him, she wanted him to say something. _'Speak words!'_

"Boobs. Fuck!" Alec slammed a hand over his mouth and braced himself for a slap. Likely followed by screaming and Brian coming to beat him to death with his own spleen. Instead he got exactly what he'd wanted.

Another one of those damn smiles.

Grin fixed in place, if still looking frail and unsure at the edges, she looked down at her chest and then back up at him with a leering wink. "They are pretty sweet ain't they." It was definitely not a question.

He couldn't move with her looking at him, could barely even breathe. Was this how normal people felt around people they liked? Was this normal? How did anyone ever get anywhere with this crap weighing them down.

"I, uh, I should go, help?" He finally managed to choke out. The laugh that followed him back up the stairs was both reassuring, and the most terrifying thing he'd ever heard. Already he couldn't wait to hear it again.

Back upstairs, things had broken down even further. Though at least everyone had switched out of towels and into bathrobes.

"What do you mean, you don't know?! Your entire power is knowing things!"

Lisa managed to keep her cool in the face of Taylor's fury, but it wasn't hard to see that it was a close thing.

"Like I said five times already, I need information to work off of. The Brockton PRT has switched their system over to a hardened mode with everything going on, I can't get in."

"So find it somewhere else! What about this boss guy you're always talking about?!"

Anger turned to caution, caution and a hint of fear, "And like I told you already, the boss has gone hands off with us ever since the mill. Asking him for information is putting us firmly in his debt, and you do not want that Taylor. You don't."

"Don't-!" Taylor cut herself off, on the verge of bursting into tears. Then she squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself to calm down. When she continued, it was in a quieter voice. "He's my dad Lisa. I got him into this. I'll get myself in any debt that it takes, just tell me what to do."

There was a long moment where the air hung heavy with tension. Rachel was staring from the couch and Brian was sitting on the table with his brow furrowed in thought. Finally, blonde hair shook back and forth as Lisa shook her head in resignation. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

She had her phone half out of her pocket when it began to buzz, still set to vibrate from the job. Alec felt the nerves in her arm twitch like she'd barely kept herself from hurling it at a wall. He thumb trembling before it swept the screen and tapped the speaker button. A moment later the room was filled with the sound of-

"Hey kids. Sorry it took us so long to call."

-someone that sounded a lot like Lacey. Was Lacey secretly the boss? Because that would be awesome.

Another voice broke the spell, "Yeah, that was my bad. I kept finding other things to get done first." This one Alec hadn't heard as much but still recognised as one of their contacts among the dockworkers. A guy named Alexander who managed to simultaneously be a funny guy, and crushingly boring with all his going on about organisation and such.

"Uh." Was Lisa's genius contribution to the discussion. Meanwhile Taylor looked like she had no idea what was going on. Alec wasn't going to get involved, and he knew Rachel was smart enough to do the same. Leaving just one man to step up to the job none of them wanted.

"Sorry about the van. We kind of got blown up."

Good ol' Brian.

"We have the loot though. You'll get your share as soon as we deal with a f-"

"Who the hell do you think we are!" Shouted the last of the dockworkers that Alec had ever heard speaking. Or at least, the last one whose name he had bothered to remember. This was Kurt. Lacey's husband. A man who looked far too big to not be a brute, but who was in fact, a normal human. Alec still wanted to have an arm wrestling contest with him while transformed, just to see the big man's face when he lost. Preferably when he didn't sound so angry, "Danny's been taken and you think that's what we care about?!"

"You're planning a rescue." Stated Lacey. "We want to help."

That snapped Taylor out of her stupor. "No! You can't. You could get hurt, or arrested, or taken like dad."

The gentle giant of a woman spoke gently, but with a steel core, like a sock full of ball bearings. "Taylor, honey, we risk getting hurt no matter what we do right now. As for getting arrested..."

Alexander snorted, "We've spent weeks helping you kids out. Guiding you through the tunnels, parking vehicles and picking them up, leaving those bags of clothes all over the place,-" There was an unspoken consensus as to just how valuable that one was to them, "-hell we even set up that fake building site for when you want after the cash transport, that time with Victor."

"W-well, that was all really great and all..." Taylor didn't seem to know what to say.

"Yeah, especially since we got paid for all of it. Trust me when I say that the members that we trust enough to know about this arrangement, well they love you guys for it. But little owl, you do realise that it's all been illegal right?"

The stunned silence suggested that she hadn't really thought her dad was getting his friends to break the law for her sake.

"We're already accomplices a dozen times over. So why not go all the way. Now do you want our intel or not."

"Damn right." "Yes we do." Brian and Lisa spoke over one another.

There was a brief burst of laughter, "Okay, then your minions have a hell of a lot of it for you." Said Lacey.

"How?" Alec blurted.

"Thank Danny," Rumbled Kurt. "After a few guys got killed in a cape fight at the North Winslow construction site last year, he arranged for us all to keep an eye on cape movements near us and gather the information back at the Union building. Just to help us stay clear."

"...Please tell me you're still doing that." Whispered Lisa with hope dawning across her face.

"We were even especially spread out today. There's a lot of emergency work right now. Clearing roads, shifting rubble, so it looks like we need our Danny back." Alexander's grin showed in his voice. Then he spoke in a more serious tone, "We're waiting down in the tunnels, bring a map and some lights. Let's get this done."

"No." As ever, Rachel gave no warning that she was entering the conversation. "I'll come get you. Faster that way." Then she was off, wearing nothing but her tail and a towel, trailed by Angelica and Brutus. Alec smiled at Judas, spread out on the couch like he was sunbathing, more than a little jealous of the dog.

For being able to laze around. Not for losing his legs earlier.

"We don't have long until Rachel gets back. Get cleaned up and into costume, everyone." Brian commanded in his leader voice. On this occasion Alec actually felt like doing it. He even resisted the urge to follow Brian down to talk to Aisha.

Alec's room wasn't messy. He tried and tired but he could never make himself do it. Some habits die hard, especially when they were drilled in with horrific mental torture.

He'd grabbed a basin of warm water instead of dicking around with the shower, and there was a pop up kiddy pool in his cupboard. Lots of fun stuff in there, not much in the way of clothes though.

Idly imagining the coming summer and sticking the pool up on the roof with some deck chairs, now that they were all super tough most of the time and could survive falling off the roof, Alec dropped the towel and set to sponging himself clean of the sweat and much and fleshy nastiness. _'We'll need to set up a flat platform on the roof. So that's something to talk Brian into doing.'_

Then the image of Aisha in a swimsuit hit and made washing very awkward for a while. Soon enough he was done though. Then it was just a matter of grabbing one of his costumes from the case under his bed, yanking pieces on while he tried to remember which of the loot bags had his sceptre in it.

Not that he was getting much use out of the fancy taser these days. A thought that gave him a little rush of what he guessed was nostalgia. He'd never felt that one before. It was nice.

_babang bang_

He'd know Brian's oversized fists anywhere. That guy knocked like the doors owed him money.

Still, Alec was out of his room and into the planning area in a few seconds. There, clustered around the planning table and looking more than little uncomfortable despite all their bravado, were Kurt, Lacey, and a lean man with sandy hair that had to be Alexander.

"Sup, prospective minions." Alec grinned from behind his mask. Savouring the way that Alexander jumped a little. The other two stayed calm though. If he didn't have inhuman ears and a tail and the enhanced everything that went with those, well Alec would have been intimidated by the couple. The two of them looked oddly normal sized standing together, at least until Taylor ran up and wrapped her arms around them both, her skinny figure reminding the eye how big the two of them were.

Rachel was already at the table, Brian arrived a few seconds later with Lisa in tow -both masked and costumed- and still pulling on her boots. Their leader shook hands like a serious adult person, and the meeting began.

Like all the best meetings, it began with Lisa unfurling a map of the Bay that covered the massive table almost completely. "So then, where have we got sightings?"

Lacey was the first to get her tongue in order, "Wait, what's the plan here? Are we hunting one of 'em down or what?"

Brian's echoing voice was as non-terrifying as he could make it. "That depends on your information. Nocht is already in PRT custody and we couldn't risk hanging around there,"

"He didn't know anything anyway." Lisa interjected.

Brian nodded to her before smoothly continuing, "Which means the only ones left who might know where Da- where Taylor's dad is, would be Kaiser."

"Who I've already figured out isn't in the field." Lisa said, not paying any attention to the round of nods from the dockworkers.

"Or Abwehr. The other one of the pair who took him. Also a thinker, so he probably knows a fair bit." Brian finished.

Kurt huffed a sigh like a grumpy bear, then reached out and tapped several spots on the map, pointing to others that he couldn't reach. Their thinker slumped a little and groaned. "Those would be Abwehr sightings, wouldn't they?"

"Yeah," Alexander said. "He's roaming around the city with Crusader and that androgynous one with the plants all over him."

"Eldar. Swiss nationality, Gesselschaft member for almost a decade, thinks his powers are magic, controls plants with song and -though he tries to keep it secret- can listen to them too. So two info-gatherers and a guy who can scout through walls...and..." She sighed. "That team's interesting, especially if they're the ones roaming, but there's no way we'll catch them. Not reliably enough to bet on it."

"Agreed." Brian stated firmly. "So we need to narrow down locations instead. They won't be using those tunnels, not with them compromised by us, so it's somewhere in the city itself...What else do you have?"

"The merchants are fighting in the middle of Bayview Boulevard, against-"

"Desert Fox, the reluctant Nazi, and Forest, the Tom Hanks hating Klansman. We already know about those two." Nevertheless, she leaned over and circled an area several blocks across with a bright red marker.

Lacey nodded, "Some guy was seen walking into the Asian District, a couple dead Bad Boys around him. Our girl didn't get too close, but she said he looked mostly normal. Blonde hair, shirt and slacks, he was wearing a collar though. A white one. Like a priest."

The marker cracked in Lisa's grip. "Oh fuck me running."

Everyone stared at her. Eventually she managed to say. "That would be Chaste. I...I have no idea how he could have gotten into the country without setting off a serious response. He's at the very tip top of Gesselschaft, and probably their strongest single cape. Either the triumvirate is busy or the PRT is relying on him and Lung stalemating."

Alec liked the Bay, but he wasn't a native. So he lacked the perverse sense of pride that had Lacey leaning forward to say, "Beat Lung? Our dragon is a bit too much of a bastard for that."

"I said stalemate, not beat."

"That's even harder." She almost shouted. "Lung beat an Endbringer for pity's sake. Some Nazi's going to hold him off alone?!"

"Chaste...Chaste doesn't attend those kinds of fights. According to his radio show," She held up a hand to cut them off, "Yeah, I know, he says that the Endbringers are god's judgement for the sinful ways of man. Or the devil's punishment. Given what he did to the Munich March of '01, he clearly has some deeply held opinions about...almost everyone really."

Whether she remembered whatever event Lisa has referred to, or just realised how serious she was being, the twisted pride had left Lacey. "So which of them will win?"

Lisa reached over the table and scored a thick red line through the Asian District. Then added another to complete the 'x'. "Doesn't matter. No one else will be able to survive that fight." She looked at the ceiling for a moment, "It would be nice if they killed each other though."

"What about Purity." Rachel had another one of her rare attempts to add to a conversation in progress. "Is she around?"

Lisa smiled, "No way. Have you seen her television spots? Talking about her abusive husband back in the Empire? The dangers of falling in with gangs? She's way too happy in Boston, if she comes back at all then I doubt it'd be on the Empire's side." The marker tapped a rapid beat against the table edge. "No, she'll probably just denounce the attacks publicly in a few days, weeks, whatever. Which keeps Night and Fog in Boston with her, in the weirdest gang of heroes since..."

Kurt offered, "Since the Pastel Pillagers?"

Well who could leave that hanging out there? Alec sure as hell couldn't, "Who are they?"

The big guy's mouth opened and an echoing voice cut across them all, "Let's stay focused. What about the heroes? You know what they're up against."

"Hmm," Alexander stroking his chin and pulled out a little notebook, "Krieg, a guy in a leather bodysuit, some guy covered in armour, and a woman dressed like an old timey plague doctor, all attacked the tax office near PRT headquarters."

Again Lisa filled them in, "Krieg is the Gesselschaft contact so that makes sense. Subject 08 is a nightmare for tinkers, beneath the suit he's made of a swarm of little clockwork blobs, like a bunch of gremlins taking machines apart and grinding up flesh. Along with Black Death, who creates and controls plagues, and Krieg, they're a nasty combination. Add in Ratte, guy grows armour plating when he fights, and you've got a powerful attack with a strong brute to shield them. They're aiming to hold off the PRT as long as possible. In fact a lot of this looks like delay tactics."

"Funny that a Nazi would be called Black anything." Brian mused.

"Oh," Lisa grinned, "She's a black woman."

Even Taylor was staring at her incredulously.

"You should all try to keep with the modern world more. Gesselschaft aren't some old fashioned bunch of racist assholes, no they're a modern day bunch of racist assholes, and have decided that there can be more than one master race. So just like all the non-Aryan white people are trash to them, Black Death's group sees all the non-Nubian black people as subhuman. There's another group in Korea that has similar views. The three of them get along pretty well in fact."

"So she's on loan to Gesselschaft? That's insane." Brian sounded more than a little shocked.

"Oh it's better than that. Based on these teams, I'd wager she and Krieg are good friends. I bet they like to get together and kill Jews on the weekends." The disgust in Lisa's voice was palpable, lingering over the table as she marked the map some more.

"Moving on," Lacey tried to bring the mood back up, "The twin giants, Hookwolf, and some guy calling himself Heimdall were seen attacking New Wave's public offices. You all know the first three, and the wannabe Aesir summons these weird blue energy discs. He can fly on them and use them a shields and our guy saw him throw a bunch really high up and shoot energy beams out of them. Seriously powerful ones, would've blown the building to rubble if Shielder wasn't there."

"He can see through them too." Lisa muttered absently, reaching out and adding more circles and crosses to the map. She stared at it, looking more and more confused by the minute.

"What's wrong?" Alexander asked, speaking carefully, like he was afraid of spooking her.

"What's wrong," She sighed in disgust, "What's wrong is I've eliminated the entire city." Sure enough when Alec looked closer he realised that there wasn't a block in the city that didn't have some kind of red on it. Whether a little tick, or a sweeping portion of a larger symbol. "So I either fucked up somewhere along the way or else-"

"You didn't." Brian was staring at the map too, and slowly crooked his head to the side. Lisa looked on uncomprehending, presumably unwilling to use her power just to find out a second sooner. Then Taylor perked up in her seat and exchanged a glance with Brian that felt like a whole conversation was stuffed into it.

The person with the most at stake in the plan, whatever plan they ended up with, Taylor had mostly stayed quiet and let them work. Now she smiled ever so slightly and turned to Alexander as Brian picked up a green marker and walked over to a particular area of the map.

"Uncle Alexander, you guys keep tabs on the ships that come in, right?" All eyes turned to her, then to Brian as he circled the empty waters of the bay, and the docks that still bordered on them, even if they saw much less traffic nowadays.

Kurt stretched out an arm like an avalanche and tapped the tip of one sausage finger on the map right in the middle of the green. "There's a yacht, a real big one, barely made it through the safe gap into the bay. It's been there for almost two months now. Only gone out to sea twice in all that time."

"That's it!" Lisa smirked like a fox that had just spotted a hole in the fence. "That gives them a safe haven, even against Lung, plus an easy escape if anyone finds them there. I'm almost certain that's how they smuggled the Gesselschaft capes in too, just meet up with another boat out on the sea and then come back in to let them off."

Lacey wrapped a congratulatory arm around her husband, then frowned a little. "Funny that it turned out to be a Nazi boat. I thought it was a celebrity or some shit."

"What, cause they have a big tacky boat?" Alec joked.

"Nah, because my girl Susan saw a paparazzi hanging out near it a couple weeks back. A guy with a big camera, taking pictures from his car, the creep."

Alec shrugged, "He probably just made the same assumption as you. Thought he'd get a shot of some actress with her tits out."

Brian brought them back on track with a hand slammed down on the table. Taylor standing close at his side and already scribbling on a blank section of the map.

"Okay, if we're sure that they're on the yacht?" Lisa nodded without dropping her smirk, "Then...I think we have a plan."

They all sat, they all listened, and after they'd all finished yelling...they all agreed.

* * *

Riding Rachel's dogs to avoid tiring themselves out too early, the Undersiders had vanished off into their personal tunnel with three adrenaline-filled Dockworkers in tow.

Left behind with only a brief goodbye from her dumb big brother, Aisha sat on the couch and tried to tell herself that he'd be all right. That they'd all be all right.

After a while she gave up on playing any games. Then she switched off the television entirely. It wasn't doing anything but make her head hurt.

Somehow she found herself over by the planning table, with it's heavily annotated map and the lingering plates of food. Damn if those guys didn't eat like they were all pregnant with quintuplets. Hungry ones.

Aisha traced a finger along the lines of the map, then scowled and punched it hard enough to make her knuckles sting. She growled under her breath, "Why the hell do I feel guilty? What do I even have to feel bad about?"

The problem was that she knew exactly what the answer was, and she had been such a coward that she hadn't even said sorry to the tramp. Which was fine, because Taylor was clearly taking advantage of Brian, no matter how much the wolfgirl tried to butter her up. Like she'd never had one of mom's boyfriends try that shit on her. Get on her good side to score points, all while taking advantage. Fuck that.

Only...she wasn't entirely sure that Taylor was doing that. Not after seeing even Alec stand up for her. The memory of the usually composed boy staring at her red faced and stuttering made for a nice distraction...but it didn't hold off the truth for long.

'Cause the truth was, it didn't matter in the end. What mattered was the disappointment that she'd seen in her brother's eyes. That was what was haunting her.

He'd never looked like that before. Not even when he yelled at her. He'd always just looked tired, or annoyed, or -occasionally- like he wasn't angry at all and he was only yelling at her because he thought he had to. Like she was going to listen to a thief telling her not to shoplift. Even if she hadn't known he was a thief back then.

Point was, she'd let him down. The one person who really truly thought something of her. Who looked at her like she might grow up to be more than some junkie gutter whore...and she'd let him down.

Her finger stopped at the centre of a circle of green, and Aisha thought back to the snatches of conversation that she'd overheard. Then she turned on her heel and went to steal a couple things from her brother's room.

She wasn't going to let him down again.


	29. Coyote: 7

Waves lapped against stone. Same as it had a thousand years ago, same as it would a thousand years in the future.

Sure, the stone was a mix of old walls and newer concrete, but it was still stone. Still slowly worn down by the caress of the tides. Still doomed to crumble away. And all along the way, the noise would stay the same.

_fwwwooooo_

A foghorn chose that moment to ruin the mood completely.

Some of his disappointment must have shown in his body. Enough that the privacy intruding pair both gave him amused looks. At least, Lisa's was amused. Alec could never really tell with Rachel. Maybe she just thought he was weird for being annoyed at a foghorn. Maybe she understood completely. Maybe she was trying to remember if she left the stove on. The important thing was that he had decided to find that foghorn and kick it to pieces.

It wasn't even foggy. Wasn't that what those things were for? Not ruining the mood of a nice moonlit walk.

"Nice to see you're so relaxed." Muttered Lisa beside him. Hopefully they were far enough behind Taylor for the girl stomping through the abandoned docks not to hear them. Probably not, but then, she was so focused on what was in front of them that Alec wasn't sure she'd be able to understand them anyway.

The way he figured it though, there was no point worrying until they actually got to their destination. Bumping Lisa with his shoulder, he muttered back, "We took the scenic route, might as well enjoy the scenery."

It was pretty sweet scenery at that. With the boat graveyard behind them, and the active docks ahead, they walked through a still and silent memorial. The ruin of the Bay's shipping industry. Warehouse after warehouse, stripped of anything valuable and left to keep rusting vigil over the crumbling piers and rotting boats. The whole vista was lit by the setting sun, accompanied by the distant music of battles finally starting to die down.

Alec had grown up with a classical education, lectured and instructed by women desperate to obey his father's commands. Most of them had been terrible at teaching and most of his siblings took almost nothing from it all. Heck, he had learned the hard way after leaving home that his 'education' was missing almost everything that was needed to make it out in the world. Yet it had at least prepared him to see the beauty in places like this. The death of a city played out in sights and sounds and time of day.

All together, it set his revived heart to aching. It made him almost consider giving Heartbreaker a quick death. _'...almost.'_

Lisa drove an elbow into his gut and nodded to the high fence that was coming into view up ahead of them. Time to put the game face on.

Not that Alec didn't take a minute first to look around and consider that Taylor was the only one of their merry band who had a father worth the title. It seemed...wrong, that of all their shitty parents, it would be hers that was taken by Nazis. As well as exactly the kind of shitty luck that he expected from life.

Now the fence was close enough to make out details. Coils of razor wire along the top, and concrete encasing the first few feet off the ground. The gate was closed not only with a chain (that he guessed was padlocked) but also a pair of thick steel bars spanning the door and several feet of fence on either side. Clearly this was a place with insurance investigators breathing down their neck.

Course, none of it would have slowed them down much. With a bit of a boost they could probably jump right over it. Likely setting off the alarms whose warning signs practically wallpapered the damn fence.

So it was a good thing that, as they came to within a dozen feet of it, the bars slid off to the side and the chain was pulled clear. All driven by simple muscle power. A couple of burly folks dressed for cold weather had cleared the obstructions, following up by pulling open the gates themselves.

Alec recognised none of them, and they didn't exactly act friendly as the Undersiders walked through their group. The Dockworkers set to closing the gate behind them without ever making eye contact._ 'So these are probably the less committed ones. More scared to be seen with a villain, or maybe just scared of us?'_ Either way it got them past the alarms and into the section of Brockton's docks that still buzzed with activity.

Even with a fight raging through much of the city, there was no slowdown in the loading and unloading of what few ships still came through these docks. All around them were more of the experienced stevedores carried crates and drove vehicles that carried bigger crates. Moving with an efficient desperation beneath their winter layers.

Lisa tutted sympathetically and, having gotten stuck watching the news more than once since joining the team, Alec thought he understood why. These docks were a shadow of what once was, and that meant far more qualified workers than their were jobs still around.

Weirder than that normal boring depressing shit, none of them were looking at the Undersiders.

More of what the lot at the gate had been like. No eye contact, no waving, definitely no talking. Just a whole bunch of grown men and women acting like the supervillains in their midst didn't exist.

_'Is this what being invisible feels like?'_ A blonde woman with a nasty scar through her nose accidentally met his gaze and flinched away like she'd been burned. _'Not as fun as I thought it would be.'_

They kept walking. Taylor had long since fallen back to stand with the rest of them, her eagerness beaten into submission by practicality. Plus Brian was grabbing her shoulder every time she started to walk faster than the rest of them.

Their walk was slow, slow enough that it would normally have gotten them surrounded and captured by this point. So it seemed likely even to Alec that the Dockworkers had been serious. They were really in this to the end. Even if most of them didn't seem to be ready to do more than not phoning their location in to the PRT.

Though now that he thought about it, the PRT were occupied with the minor war that had broken out in the streets, so that could also be the reason for no flashing lights and handcuffs. Either way he'd take it. The narrow alley between two warehouses that they were walking in...well deathtrap didn't quite cut it.

A few feet in front of him, Brian came to the end of the alley and stopped cold. There was no comedic pile-up. All of them came to a halt smoothly and with tension coiling in their limbs. Given that their limbs were all currently superhuman -maintained by the occasional poke from Taylor- that tension could really fuck someone up. Would, really fuck someone up.

Darkness boiled out of Brian's skin and he reached back to grab Rachel's shirt. Pulling her in close, he whispered something in her ear and gently pushed her away.

Their fearless leader stepped out from the alley and they followed. All but Rachel who stayed behind and thus did not get a look at the floating building out on the water.

It sat heavily at the end of a narrow wooden pier. At least two hundred feet long, several stories high, and lit up like a Christmas tree forged from gold and fibreglass. It was a beautiful testament to wealth that somehow managed to look tasteful despite being such a ridiculous display of wealth that even Alec found himself sneering at it.

Oh, and it was almost the only boat on this section of the docks. Meaning a lot of empty space to be watched. Watched by...Alec counted at least twenty armed guards. Men and a few women, lean, dressed in neat black uniforms, and carrying themselves with training. They carried automatic weapons and the standard utility belt of someone on guard. Standing on the pier, the edges of the yacht, arrayed around the docks themselves. They glared at any dockworkers that got too close and kept hands close to their guns.

_'Someone's expecting a little trouble.'_ Which was probably smart.

What wasn't smart was stepping out into the open with well over a dozen heavily armed soldiers waiting for them. It was sheer audacity to ignore the shouts of alarm and the guns being pointed at them. Keeping on walking towards the pier had to border on outright madness.

So they had to be mad, because even Alec found himself strolling along behind Brian without a moment's hesitation. Instead of bracing for the bullets, he sniggered under his breath at the occasional snatch of German from one of the guards. It was like being in a movie.

At the base of the pier their refusal to stop was finally met with force. Three guards stood abreast at across the pier and glared at them. If the guns that two of them levelled didn't get the point across, then the third one would have managed it when he stepped forward and slammed the butt of his rifle into Brian's gut.

Or, he tried to.

The Nazi looked down at the skinny maskless girl who had caught his attack and was holding his weapon like a vice. Before he could shout orders, or draw his handgun, or even realise what the fuck was going on, Brian made a sharp gesture and Alec took his cue to whistle as loud as he could.

_fweeeeeeeeeeeee_

Barrels -the bullet kind, not the whiskey kind- turned towards him and then snapped over to the pair of massive dogs charging out of nowhere and smashing guards aside like they were made of straw.

These guys were well trained though, and it was mere seconds before they opened fire. Focusing on the obvious threat even as a few of them (including all three members of the human wall) kept their guns trained on the costumed kids who had just walked up to them. Alec could see fingers inside of trigger guards, feel the twitching of nerves as many of the guards debated simply shooting them and joining the battle against Bitch.

Which meant that when Runt nodded to a stevedore walking down the pier towards them, well Regent would bet good money that none of the guards expected Lacey to pull out an airhorn. Then there was a blast of _fwooo_ and...

Between getting them used to it, and waiting for the right people to get into position, the plan had taken them hours. It was, in Alec's opinion, totally worth it just to see every dockworker in sight pull off caps and hoods to reveal a dozen varieties of dog ears. Guards found themselves surrounded not by cringing civilians, but by large people with pointy smiles. Many of them pulling out improvised weapons, or already holding crowbars. Then those people went wild.

The ordered firing lines that had engaged Bitch collapsed in an instant. The trio blocking the pier were bowled over by Lacey slamming into them from behind, then Kurt came out of thin air to join her in smacking the shit out of them. Or maybe he'd just been standing somewhere off to the side. It didn't matter, the way was clear and the four of them casually stepped over the brawl to start walking down the pier.

Bullets still split the air, the din of gunshots spiking into Regent's sensitive ears. It just didn't do them much good. Even when the few guards still standing managed to hit someone, they tended to just get madder. When he looked back, Regent couldn't see a single fatal wound among the dockwolves, though he did see a pair of four-legged monsters made of flesh and bone.

The girl sitting on one of them, her head transformed into a mash-up of human and wolf, pointed her hands at the four of them. Bitch's power hit them between one step and the next, rushing in so fast that Regent almost stumbled off the pier and splashed into the murky water. He managed to hold steady though. Yanking off his shirt and the stab vest beneath, he left the rest of his clothes as they were.

His pants burst at the seams around halfway up the pier. Already their skin had changed enough that even Runt wasn't bothered by the loss of coverage. Fur marking most of them, while thick plates of bone were already pushing their way out of Grue's skin. Sneakers exploded off his feet and his claws gouged scars into the boards. The gap between scars grew an inch with every step he took, until their combined weight was making the pier groan.

Finally it was done. Behind them Bitch returned to the fight, tasked with finishing the guards and holding off and defending their way out. In front of them, the gangplank loomed at the end of the pier. A metal walkway that led up to the main deck of the gaudy piece of shit that the Empire fucks were hiding on.

Blood sang in Regent's ears at the thought of the hunt to come. Just thinking of it tore a howl from his throat, battlethirst bubbling up from his chest and spilling into the sound.

Around him, back on the docks, answering howls split the air.

Runt howled loudest of them all, fury and pain in her voice as she charged into the lead. Grue let her have it, running behind her and barking at the rest of his team to do the same. Both of them were eager to obey.

Steel clattered beneath claws, flexed beneath several tons of weight, and held long enough for them to roar and smash up onto the deck to find...

Nothing.

There was a hot tub nestled against a wet bar. Several doors into what looked like some kind of lounge. Life boats and metal capped buoys lined the edges of the deck. Not a single person to be seen though. Not even the guards they'd spotted before.

It would have been downright eerie, if there wasn't a fight raging less than a hundred yards away, plus the sound of distant explosions still rang out from the city. Even with all that it was...not creepy exactly...but worrying.

Prowling around the deck, they poked and searched for anyone hiding in ambush. They didn't have an agreed signal for trap, mainly because they'd been the ones setting the traps for the last few weeks. It would have seemed an oversight if they hadn't already wordlessly agreed that this was one.

'Not that we can run away,' Regent thought bitterly, 'Not with a hostage in their hands.' Fury was getting harder and harder to keep a grip on. Fear only made it harder not to give in and rampage. Instead he growled and sniffed the air for any trace of a scent. Catching nothing he recognised, except for a vaguely familiar spice coming from a few damp footprints.

Was it even a trap meant for them? Regent couldn't see how Kaiser could possibly have predicted that the Undersiders would find him, even with a hostage to motivate them. So was it just a trap for anyone who turned up or were they going to have company from some other group too?

Finally they'd searched every square inch of the deck and could only go back and get ready to squeeze themselves inside. Regent kept his head on a swivel but his tension was easing off. The ambush would have come already if it was planned for the decks, plus they'd be confined if they went inside. _'Hell of a thing to be glad of.'_

The four of them passed the hot tub and gathered to find the best way to fit inside, Regent figured that crawling would be easiest and stepped forward to demonstrate-

Metal speared through the floorboards in a thick spike, then it flowered into blades that spun and slashed and forced them all to scatter. Revealed by the steel blossoming was a tall man in impossibly ornate armour. Strategically places edges looked sharp enough to slice silk, while others were just shiny. His arms were folded, metal scraping lightly together.

Whether her reflexes were faster, or her many many eyes had noticed his entrance an instant earlier than the rest of them, Tattletale was the one who lunged at him first. She didn't mess around. Her bulk let her ignore the meagre blades he stabbed into her, wrapping tail and claws around him as her maw gaped open and closed on his head until her teeth were pressing hard against his skin.

Skin that didn't yield a millimetre. Nerves that Regent could hardly feel behind a wall of, something.

Every eye on her body shot open, wide and panicked and then blood fountained absolutely fucking everywhere.

The three of them rushed forward, then Regent couldn't see the others as a blade the size of a pillar shot out of a buoy nearby and blocked his view. When he tried to jump it, another blade shot out of the top and then more out of the sides of that one. Fast enough to force him to kick off them before he sliced himself apart.

It would have been a lot scarier if he didn't know Kaiser was limited to line of sight. If he wasn't pumping with righteous rage, ready to tear the bastard apart for what he'd done. Fear creeping out of his thoughts to whisper of how awful the wound had looked.

He rolled to the side until he was clear of the blade, then he came up in a runner's pose, and -digging his claws into the boards for purchase- shot forward too quickly for it to catch him.

Tattletale was down, on her knees with her eyes dead and dull, lush fur soaked with blood from more cuts than he could count. Regent snarled and leapt, clearing her body and being hit in the stomach by a spear of metal that he barely caught in time. It cut deep into his hands as he swung around it and landed on the next deck up instead of being spitted on Kaiser's attack.

The railing crumpled like tin beneath his claws and Regent looked down to see Kaiser with his arms buried in Tattletale's chest. Grue and Runt were a dozen feet away, but couldn't approach through the thicket of blades he had grown between them. _'If I attack, it should distract him enough that Grue won't have to worry about Kaiser finding gaps between his plates.'_

Unfortunately, before Regent could hurl himself at Kaiser and scream out the pain stabbing his chest, the Nazi bastard pulled his hands out of Tattletale's chest with another shower of blood and blur of blades and waved Tattletale's real body at them all. Still breathing, cut badly but already healing before their eyes. She was flailing and tugging at his fingers with enough strength to bend steel, but nothing was happening.

"O-Oth...ala!" She choked out through the constriction of her airway.

Kaiser laughed at her, then tossed her into the hot tub with a negligent twist of his hand. His voice was silken and sophisticated, with a strong core to it, "I suppose it is rather obvious at this point. Invincibility is just too useful not to use however."

Blood gave her some semblance of modesty, but Tattletale still snatched up a towel as she climbed out of the hot tub, leaving water stained as red as her towel rapidly became.

She was ignored. Kaiser turned unerringly to look at Runt, smiling faintly as he took her in. "Though not nearly so useful as you are, such a pity you didn't come to your own people from the start young Taylor. We could have helped you to attack that cesspool."

Whatever reaction he'd expected, her glaring at him even more murderously didn't seem to be it. He flinched just a little, then settled back into the same relaxed pose.

"No matter. You are to be Gesellschaft's prize, it is too late for any other outcome." He took a step towards Runt, a wave of metal rising around him and flowering into rows of blades pointing forward. "Be honoured that our European comrades consider you a worthy price for all this. I am sure you will aid their cause greatly...once properly motivated."

Grue rumbled loud enough that Regent thought the deck might start to shake. He padded over to stand beside Runt, only getting another laugh from Kaiser. "Oh, that form certainly suits you Grue. The role of dog is perfect for your kind."

Another step, another layer to his wall of blades. Then another, pushing Grue and Runt back a step. Not seeing any other choice, Regent readied himself to leap for Kaiser's back when a massive crash drew every eye back to the docks.

Rising rapidly to tower over every building, Fenja and Menja had arrived. One of them lashed out with a spear the length of several buses, and one of Bitch's dogs was smashed into the air to tumble through a warehouse roof.

A yelp snapped Regent's attention back in time to see Runt limping back while Grue smashed and raged against the blades, only to be forced back as well after landing a glancing blow to Kaiser. One that did nothing to him. Another smug chuckle rang out, but this time it was from the bedraggled blonde crouched beside a hot tub and her own decaying monster corpse.

"All this for little old us? Kidnapping and ambushing because you can't take us straight up. You must be humiliated to be forced so far by a bunch of petty thieves like us." She mocked him openly despite having only her basic enhancements to keep herself alive. Regent wasn't sure whether to admire her balls or call her a moron.

Kaiser suffered no such dilemma.

He jabbed at the air and a glittering shaft shot towards the thinker, forcing her to dive and roll back to her feet, "You think I care about your pathetic little band of thieves?" Another jab, another spear nearly gutted her, "You think a few lost capes and cash is enough to bring my Empire to its knees!"

This time it was a feint, no blade flying out as he instead spun low and shoved a hand up along with a forest of spikes that sprouted and forced Runt to break off her attack. He spun back just in time to catch Tattletale's fists in hands that were still invincible. "Did you really think that all this was because of you?!" He mocked with his masked face bare inches from hers.

Metal shot out of his chestplate and Tattletale tore her hands free just in time to get clear. Kaiser didn't bother to pursue. Instead he crossed his arms again and looked coolly from one Undersider to another. His voice was calm again. "No, it is your commander that I seek. The man plotting to reveal our faces to the world, thinking me too stupid to discover his eyes. Traitors and Voyeurs and that damned mercenary."

"We don't work for him like that." Spat Tattletale. She ignored the looks that her teammates shot her way, which would have been enough for Regent to use his power, if it weren't for the life or death battle and all that.

A sigh sounded strange through a metal helmet. It rang against the metal, like a tuning fork. "Do not lie to me again Tattletale. Only a fool would think it mere coincidence, you must be coordinating with Coil somehow, and he would not partner with such as you. Not tell me all you know, before I use one of my hostages to demonstrate what I will do to the other."

There was a very short, very deep pause. One in which Alec felt his stomach sink into his massive tree trunk legs. The instincts that he was rapidly learning to trust were screaming at him.

Lisa went for a bluff, "Two hostages? I don't know who you think you have, but Runt's dad is the only one in this city any of us give a damn about. I promise you that."

"Oh?" He hummed, sounding on the verge of more laughter. "Are you so sure?"

An armoured hand pointed casually to one of the doors, where the Empire's healer had arrived some time while they spoke and was leaning heavily on the doorframe. Something about her appearance had Tattletale smiling, just for a moment, before she sagged with obvious horror.

The red bodysuit was darker in a few small spots, and Othala's nose was bloody, but she grinned feral and fierce as she nodded to Grue and said, "We were so sure she was a relation of yours. The little street rat is wearing one of your jackets after all."


	30. Pup: 1

Brian's shoulders were just...who even needed that much width? His jacket felt like a dress, if one that was too short even for her.

There was stylish and then there was just trying too hard.

Not that a leather jacket that came down to mid thigh could ever be stylish. It was lucky that it had trauma plates sewn into the lining or else she'd never have granted it the honour of being worn. A great gain in status compared to its lowly beginnings, covering up her brother's gross muscles.

She'd taken some of Lisa's pants instead of trying to get any of Brian's armoured pairs to stay on. They just didn't make belts with enough holes in them.

Then she'd nabbed one of Lisa's masks, which didn't fit quite right but was better than outing her brother's identity, and stuffed the whole lot into a backpack. Along with some snacks and a few other essential supplies.

Since she wasn't a complete moron, Aisha checked the peepholes very very carefully before darting out through the street door to the lair. Fortunately her big brother had thought to give her a key, so she could lock it and keep out all the people who wanted to break into a rusty old factory. Squatters, maybe? Whatever, they weren't getting in, and she was getting away.

Away from a place that she kinda sorta maybe missed when she wasn't there.

Not like her dad's empty apartment; filled with dumb rules and simmering tension and the echo of something that made her want to flinch. Definitely not like mom's filthy pit of drugs and sex. No, the lair was none of that. It was cool. Relaxed.

There was none of the pressure that she'd gotten used to feeling around Brian. No expectations. No faltering attempts to make her do as he said. When he was there Brian changed, like he just expected people to do what he told them to and that was it. It made her feel proud at the same time that she wanted to dig out some pictures of the fat little nerd he used to be and showing them to every one of his teammates.

It was a pity that those pictures tended to include her. Usually dressed in frilly crap and looking all adorable and chubby cheeked. Totally not the image she went for these days. No way she could show Alec that kind of thing.

The wall was at her back, holding her up as she slumped against it and tried not to groan too loudly.

Alec was nice. He was fun and didn't start looking at her like she was crazy after half an hour. She hadn't had any real friends in...ever. So finding one thanks to her brother was pretty cool. The dog girl and the blonde were both pretty cool. Tough supervillains who didn't take any shit, making their own rules instead of following anyone else's.

...Taylor was nice too...in that shitty, 'I want your mom to like me so I'm being nice to you' kind of way...but...

_'Dammit.'_

Dragging herself upright was easy. The street stretched out before her and she could hear fighting off in the distance. Still, how hard could it be, for a young black girl to travel through a city in the midst of a war with super-powered Nazis?

* * *

Really fucking hard, it turned out.

Obviously she'd been expecting the buses not to be running, and even if she'd had the money for a taxi those weren't running either. Traffic was almost dead. Aisha had grown up in the city, she'd never been further than two miles outside of it. Seeing the roads without cars speeding along them was freaky as hell.

Plus it meant she couldn't hitch a ride or sneak onto the back of a truck or anything.

Hoofing it would have been bad enough, but then she'd tried to cross the wrong road, or what turned out to be the wrong road but was normally a perfectly normal road. The pair of skinheads that came out of an alley and started yelling and waving knives at her, well they must have decided that all the fighting made it their road all of a sudden.

Dodging the Nazis forced her to double back, and as she picked her way through the city it became a familiar problem. If it wasn't a bunch of them, it was ragged looking Merchants, or Bad Boys who looked fit to piss themselves. Then there were the streets with PRT agents standing over and around fallen gang members, all of them quick to try and tell her to get off the streets and to 'safety' wherever the hell that was meant to be.

At least the capes were being loud enough that she had no problem avoiding them. Still, it took hours to travel to the dockside. A journey that was usually like twenty minutes from her big brother's lair, even on foot.

Finally she got there and found a fence blocking her way. Since whoever put it up was too cheap (or maybe too worried about kids touching it) to have electrified the thing, Aisha just pulled out the wire cutters she'd brought along and got to snipping. Took her no time at all to cut a hole and slide through.

"Ah." She gasped, flinching away from where the tip of a wire had scored a shallow line along her thigh. "Damn Lisa's stupid thin pants." She muttered. Luck was on her side though, no one heard and she had no problems pulling her backpack through and setting off through the active portion of the docks.

Sticking to the shadows proved easy. For all the activity in some areas, there was nothing going on outside of them. She only saw a few sneaky smoke breaks in the entire time she was looking around, and not one person was taking a nap in any of the out of the way places she kept to.

Course, stealth came at the cost of not being able to get an easy look at what was docked at each...wharf? Berth? Whatever. Point was that she had to dart out and then back into cover, every time she wanted a look at the boat that was tied up wherever she happened to be. Even then she barely got a glimpse each time.

Aisha would maintain to her grave that it was that reason and that reason only that she missed the yacht the first time she passed it. Only after reaching the end of the fence and heading back to double check did Aisha notice the massive yacht looming out on the water. It wasn't even camouflaged or anything.

_'...I'm never telling anyone I missed it.'_ Just thinking of what Alec and Lisa would be like, it was enough to make her blush to the roots of her hair.

Eventually the wry embarrassment died down and she was left with a cold realisation in her gut. She had actually found the boat, and going by the hoard of guards out in front of it, plus all the workers moving around boxes and trucks and shit, her brother and his team hadn't made it yet.

Her whisper was almost too quiet for even her to hear, "Am I really doing this?"

It was stupid. She knew that. Reckless and dangerous and Brian would absolutely not want her to do it. Brian, who had become a supervillain for her sake and was risking his life almost every day. Yeah, like he had any business lecturing her about taking risks.

She had to do it. For all their sneaky reputation, the Undersiders had gotten too used to being the big dogs. Stupid Runt and her stupid power had made sure of that. Thanks to her Aisha's brother was even deeper into this stupid cape shit, and worst of all Aisha couldn't even blame her because she was trying to save a father who actually sounded like a decent guy.

_'What would that be like?'_ Aisha wondered, _'To have a real dad. Not a stoic asshole, or a brother trying too hard to grow up...'_ It was the kind of thing that she'd given up dreaming about years ago. After the fourth of her mom's boyfriends in a row to be exactly as bad as the junkie bitch was, no matter how nice they acted at first.

Even if Taylor was a self-centred idiot, she shouldn't lose her dad. Not when she'd actually been lucky enough to have a proper one. So it was up to Aisha to sneak in and save him before the rest of those geniuses barged in and got him killed while they were stomping Kaiser's face in...and if she happened to prove to Brian that she was worth all the pain he'd suffered for her...

_'Come on Aisha, you can do this. You're fucking awesome.'_

The backpack was too bulky. She took what she needed out of it and left it tucked between some old crates. Then she picked her way along the docks until she found a quieter stretch and hopped into the-

_'Cold! Cold! Cold! Fuck shit cock gargling monkey fart this is cold!'_

Alec once mentioned, like it was no big deal, how they'd had to replace a white leather couch. On account of how her brother had bled all over it. Wounded by some hero that Alec hadn't named but who would definitely be getting a visit once Aisha found out who the bastard was. He hadn't gone to the hospital, couldn't...

Chattering teeth were easily silenced. All she had to do was grind them together and get busy swimming.

Less swimming really. More picking her way along the wall. It was all old stonework in the active section. They'd pulled back from the newer expanded docks before Aisha was old enough to know not to shit herself, and the older sections were badly maintained. Plenty of missing mortar for her to worm her fingers into and pull herself quietly along. Even with the sun starting to set over the water, there was no way anyone would bother to look straight down from the wall.

Plus, she was mostly underwater. Just a patch of black hair floating along. Could just be seaweed if anyone noticed her. Hopefully they'd think she was just some seaweed.

The noise of people quickly picked up as she worked her way along and refused to admit how frozen her fingers and toes felt. The pier that led out to the yacht was impossible to miss, and the guards that loitered on top of it were looking for trouble coming from the city. Not from the waterline.

When the shadow of the pier closed over her, almost like her brother was hiding her, Aisha sighed in reli-

She caught herself just in time. _'How stupid are you! Nazis with machine guns, three feet above your head. Keep fucking quiet dumbass!'_

The path of darkness was laid out before her. Distance marked in the thin lines of light that shone down through gaps in the planks. Each slow pump of her arms brought her a half dozen lines closer to the boat. Gliding closer, propelled by limbs now starting to shake and stiffen. It wouldn't slow her down, and it wouldn't break her skills. Silence was a lesson she'd learned the hard way, and she wasn't going to forget it that easily.

Still, when she felt the side of the yacht and found it warm by comparison to the water, Aisha straight up hugged the damn thing. Then she steeled herself for the hardest part of all.

Ducking beneath the surface for a moment, Aisha forced her eyes open and got a good look at how far down the boat went. Further than she'd hoped, but not far enough to make her plan suicidal. Not...completely, suicidal. Probably. _'I can hold my breath for a minute and half in the bath, so...'_

There were too many eyes on the yacht though. She couldn't climb the side facing the docks and she couldn't swim around it. So Aisha spent a minute breathing just like her old swim instructor had taught them, forced a smile at the fragmented memory of better days, and dived.

A minute and thirty seconds later, the water was still and calm.

A minute and forty seconds later, Aisha burst out of the water on the far side of the yacht and frantically tried to get air back in her lungs. Quietly.

Eventually her heart slowed enough for her to get a good look around. Then she had to restrain herself from celebrating too loudly. Then she saw the anchor chain just a few feet away and threw caution to the wind with a whispered, "Fuck yes."

Since she wasn't stupid, Aisha tugged it a few times and stayed ready to duck beneath the water if anyone peaked over the edge. When she was sure that no one would notice it shifting with her weight, she reached into one of the jacket's deep pockets -and damn was it heavy with all this water- and pulled out a pair of short metal bars.

She'd brought them to smack people with, but when she shoved them into the links of the chain they made climbing it as easy as clambering up a ladder. A ladder which had no rungs for her feet to go on, but that was fine. The chain was thick enough to wedge her trainers against it and with that it was just too damn easy to climb the thing.

At the top, with the deck railing in reach and all kinds of little holes and ledges to put her weight onto, Aisha did something that her brother would never in a million years have expected her to do.

Stopped and waited. If she'd poked her head up another few feet she'd have been able to see every guard patrolling the decks. She'd also have gotten caught, which was why she didn't do that.

Sure they had guns and would happily beat her to death, probably do other stuff to her as well. It was still a familiar scenario. The guys might have changed, but they'd always been changing. Some paid more attention. Some less. Some were blitzed in the afternoon and alert all night. Some stayed sober all day and were gone come the evening. None of them were good to get noticed by.

Aisha Laborne had spent years learning this. How to listen through a door and understand every move her opponent was making. How to listen from the other side of a boat railing and track every move the guards made. Same shit, different day.

Only when she was sure. Only when she'd double checked that she was predicting them right. Only then did Aisha scrabble over the railing, slip off her shoes, and dash for the nearest open door that was quiet enough. Her trainers went into a pocket along the way, crammed in until the stitching started to tear.

When she was crouched inside a tiny cupboard of cleaning supplies, Aisha stopped to hope that her brother wouldn't be too mad at her for breaking his shit. She still remembered how angry he'd gotten when they'd been little kids and she'd scribbled in his books. The idea of that now.

_'Aisha, you're in a boat full of Nazis, not the damn time.'_

Except, as she began to listen again, Aisha quickly found that the upper decks were almost completely quiet. Soon enough she was darting out and finding another chunk of cover. Slipping through the rooms full of fancy shit that she'd never be able to afford in her life, let alone afford to put on a fucking boat. There were only three guards inside and they were a piece of piss to avoid.

_'They're expecting an attack. Not any serious kind of break out.'_ Which was very good for her meagre chances at pulling this off.

Along the way she pocketed a few bits and pieces. A roll of twenties just sitting on a side table. The knife from an actual fucking set of golden cutlery. The doors to what she thought were bedrooms called to her with promises of jewellery, but then she saw a much more business-like door and remember what she was there for.

This thing was like something out of a submarine movie. With the big ring on the front that she was pretty sure was for tightening it until it was water tight. Or maybe just a really big doorknob for when sailors were too drunk to use a normal one.

In any case, it was open so she missed her chance to spin the valve thing. Which sucked.

What definitely didn't suck was what she found down some very steep metal stairs.

The upper decks had looked fit to host fancy parties and whatever weird wide eyed shit that rich people liked to get up to. The lower decks on the other hand, well she was still thinking of submarine movies. It was like a military boat instead of a fancy yacht.

Everything was plain metal. Space filled efficiently with bunks and crates and tight corridors that were made even more narrow by even more boxes. Not the wooden kind either. These were huge dark things made of hard plastic and stamped with letter that didn't make sense even when they were in English.

She popped the catches on one and got a glimpse at neat rows of grenades before she very carefully shut it back up and tried not to hyperventilate.

After that, Aisha was extra careful around the containers.

Footsteps down the hall she was sneaking along had her ducking into one of the side rooms. This one with a desk and a bunch of paperwork and assorted crud on it. If it had been a film, the papers would have revealed some vital clue. Unfortunately, after waiting and trying not to piss herself while the footsteps passed her by, Aisha went to the desk and found that the papers were meaningless to her.

No well presented summaries of evil plans. Just rows of figures and dates and blocks of text in some other language. She moved a paperweight to get a better look, then found the next page that caught her eye was weighed down by a broken camera. _'Jackpot?'_

Grabbing hands plucked the camera up and she went right for the memory card. Only to discover that Nazis weren't stupid and they'd taken it. Stupid broken sticky piece of shit cam...era...

'Sticky?'

It took her a moment to realise what the brownish half-dried gunk on the back of the camera was. Then Aisha dropped it without a care for the noise she made and tried very hard not to throw up. Especially when she realised that it was all over her fucking hands.

Wiping it on the pants that Lisa was definitely not going to want back...well it helped a little. Enough that she could stop gagging every time she made a fist. The scent of rotten copper stuck to her though, reminding her again of what the stakes were. Time to get back to work.

Aisha followed the corridor again, more feeling than seeing that the boat was getting narrower. Not that she was really sure which end that meant she was at. Still, it wasn't a surprise to see the corridor end in one last door.

The voices. Those were the surprise.

"The silent treatment is getting old, don't you think."

"..."

"I've heard so much since I started staying on this boat. You ask any of the scum working around here, and they'll go on and on about you."

"..."

"They talk like you're a cape. A big brave bear, roaring defiance and fury."

"..."

"Well...I'm waiting."

"..." There was a meaty _thump_ and a quiet _gnt_. Both giving Aisha the confidence to pick her way right up to the last box before the door itself. Close enough to see inside.

There was a real actual genuine wall of iron bars. Splitting off the furthest two thirds of the room, with a big door in the middle that was currently hanging open, which seemed to Aisha to make the whole thing pointless. Not that the thin man tied to a chair was likely to be escaping through it.

He was bleeding and bruised and going bald, with broken glasses and a face that she'd seen pieces of every time she'd tried to make his daughter burst into flames with sheer force of will. What was fucking impressive though, was that he was still glaring at the woman in a red bodysuit that was standing to his side. Even with her boot buried in his gut.

The boot was pulled back and the cape leant over to shout in his face, "We'll see what your little bitch thinks when she finds you. Maybe we'll even put you in the same cell." Then she punched him in the face, then she did it again.

"Think that you can come after us!"

_smack_

"Think you can take my Victor away!"

_smack_

"Think I'll just keep letting it happen!?"

She reared back and chambered a kick with grace that most people wouldn't have expected. Not if they didn't know that she was married to a man who'd stolen martial arts mastery among so much else. Othala even took a moment to point out her target to her victim, poking him on the jaw with her toes then pulling the leg back to get maximum force behind it.

Which was when Aisha, having crept up behind her, smacked Othala in the back of her other leg with one of her handy dandy metal bars. Othala yelped and her leg slipped out from under her, letting the shorter girl wrap her arms around her neck and execute a choke hold that her brother would have been achingly proud of. Once he was done being amazed that she'd paid attention to something he'd been demonstrating to his team.

It was kind of pathetic, and kind of amazing. How easy it was for Aisha to take down her first cape.

When Othala stopped struggling, Aisha didn't loosen her grip at all and instead kept counting under her breath. Another few seconds and the cape went limp for real, then Aisha let her slip to the floor.

Feeling numb, distant from her own body, Aisha staggered back a few steps and tried not to pass out.

"Tie her up." Choked a cracked voice. She looked up and met Daniel Hebert's eyes as he spat blood all over Othala's back. Something within them pulled her out of the shock. "Kid! She won't be out cold for long. You need to tie her up and bind her. Use my belt and, I think my sock will do for a gag."

He waggled one of his feet, which was indeed shoeless, as best he could with his legs chained to the chair as tightly as his arms and back were. Aisha finally found a grin and dug in her pockets for zip ties and a black gag that looked thankfully utilitarian. A bunch like it had been with Brian's handcuffs and zipties and duct tape and pepper spray. A drawer packed full of the stuff. So she was almost certain it was just for villain things and not a sign of something she absolutely did not want to think about.

It secured the same way as the zip ties, leaving Othala bound hand and foot, and secured to one of the bars. The gag proving especially useful when she work shortly after and started screaming through it. Even Aisha could barely hear her, so no fear of guards coming and shooting her full of deeply non-stylish holes.

With that bitch out of the way, Aisha turned her attention to the man she'd come to save. If she'd been disappointed by his lean build, then those eyes would have completely fixed it. He looked ready to take on an entire army. Angry, but not the sullen aggravation of her dad's eyes, no this was something else.

Aisha's father had to weigh twice what this man did. She still found the guy tied to the chair about ten times more intimidating. If this was Taylor's father then the terrifying look she'd worn back when she delivered that slap suddenly made sense. The only other time Aisha had seen eyes like that was-

_She looked up and saw him. Saw her big brother looking at her and knew that she was going to be okay. He'd come for her, just like she knew he would_

-...

So this was what a real father looked like. Aisha had never been this jealous before in her life. Not even when Jackie Mullins had come in to school with those diamond earrings and spent the whole day reminding everyone how rich her fucking mom was.

Sticking out her hand, Aisha chirped, "Hey there Taylor's dad. I'm a friend of your daughter's friends. Here to rescue you."

He looked shocked for half an instant. Then he grinned back at her. "Well kiddo, it's a bit of a blow to be rescued by a girl younger than my daughter, but if you grab the key then I'll try to co-"

The smile vanished and he hissed through his teeth. Jerking his head to the side, staring off down the corridor behind her. Aisha was smart enough to dive to the side instead of asking questions. Which meant it was quiet enough for her to hear the distant echo of boots on metal. One set, but coming closer just barely slow enough to be a walk.

There was a desk pressed against the wall behind the door. All she could think to do was clamber on top of it, grab her metal bars, and hope that she survived the next minute.

The boots got close enough that she knew the guard would be able to see inside. Then they rushed into the room in a clatter of toughened leather. Like the other guards he was dressed like a professional soldier, the kind that fought in black and did really fucked up things. When he crouched by Othala, Aisha finally noticed that the cape's eyes were open and he was about to reach out to her and Aisha was in the air before her brain could catch up with the reasons for it.

Her rods had been taken from an old ladder she found in a junkyard. Aisha had kept them with her ever since, brought them to the Undersiders' lair, and now beaten down a cape with them. They weren't the best weapons, but no human skull was going un-fractured beneath one of 'em with her full weight behind it.

It bounced off the guard's skull and Aisha tumbled to the floor in a heap.

_'But, Othala never touched him!'_ Was the last thought she got through her head before a leather boot sunk into her gut and proved that she wasn't as tough as Taylor's dad. She sobbed and puked all over the floor. Barely hearing the yelling and clicking of a radio and the many pairs of boots pounding closer and closer.

All she could do was try to crawl, somewhere, anywhere. While the guard was cutting Othala free. Maybe grab a grenade out that-

Hair pulling was girly shit, but it fucking worked. Aisha couldn't do a damn thing as the Empire racist psycho healer spat in her ear, "I recognise that jacket you filthy thieving nigger."

Then she was thrown to the floor and there were big leather boots in every direction and she barely managed to curl into a ball before it began. Not that it was long before she was beaten into a loose-limbed rag doll.

Being kicked and stomped on wasn't the worst of it. Even the occasional hunk of spit wasn't the worst thing she'd ever had done to her. Feeling like her ribs had shattered and exploded at the same time. Half her face swelling up like a busted piece of fruit. Even the hand that one of them stomped on until she could barely even feel it. None of that beat what had been done to her by her mom and that piece of shit she was dating. Pain was nothing compared to feeling dirty right down to the bone.

The worst thing. The worst thing Aisha had ever experienced in her life. That was when they were done and they tossed her into the cell with Taylor's dad.

It was looking up, peering through her good eye...and seeing...all the fire in his eyes...gone...

All that was left was guilt. Shame. Hatred that she knew was directed in as much as out. A look that she'd tried to forget ever since the first time she realised she was seeing it.

_'Not again. Not you too.'_

Just like her brother.

_'Stop looking at me like that!'_

Just like her bro-

DESTINATION


	31. Coyote: 8

_'...'_

She had to die.

Regent was in motion before Othala finished speaking. The weird little bone radar plates behind his ears split and crackled with caged lightning, then he found Othala's nerves and lit them up like a Christmas tree.

Normally his power was a delicate touch. A nudge here, a push there, only with hours to get used to all the quirks of someone's nervous system could he freely manipulate it, and even then only as much as they could manipulate it themselves.

Runt and Bitch together had transformed more than just his body. Instead of throwing sparks into someone's nerves, he was motherfucking Zeus and this bitch in particular had earned his lightning. Coursing through him and leaping through his power into her body.

The healer convulsed, hitting the floor like an epileptic. Her limbs were seized up and shaking, her eyes rolled wildly, and it wasn't nearly enough. He had learned to hit minor reflexes years ago, but now he reached for something much worse than just making her vomit. In the corner of his eye Regent saw darkness surging, and ignored it completely. He was too busy reaching for Othala's heart and wondering if he had enough power to stop it.

Maybe if he took the energy from his own nerves. His own heart. Not like he was using it anyway.

It shied away from his call, but he knew that he could coax the lightning out from his core and strike that evil cunt down like the scumshit that she was if he just reached a little furth-

A _thwmp_ shook his bones the instant before wind swept his fur flat and shattered his focus. Regent turned to face the wind out of simple reflex, which saved his life.

Something glinted. Instincts shoved him to the side. Pain lit his right arm on fire and when the world slowed down again he found a long blade had pierced his arm a foot below the elbow. It branched and branched again on either side of his arm, then before he could react those branches flowered into yet more blades, one of them finding his right shoulder and sliding through fur and muscle to score along his bones.

"Erarrrrgggh!" He screamed, staggering away from Kaiser. Desperate to get the metal out of his sight as the armoured bastard forced it to twist and coil. His arm was forced to bend, clawed hand pushed to his shoulder with blades pressing in on all sides.

Kaiser was standing on the deck, as arrogant and untouchable as he had ever been, even though Regent could feel his nerves through the armour, Othala's granted invincibility broken. Runt and Tattletale were nowhere to be seen. Grue was wreathed in darkness, circling Kaiser and growling savagely, a wall of blades rippling between the two leaders.

Grue roared, darkness swallowing the sound as a wall of it rushed forward, unhindered by mere steel. Then Kaiser tossed something dull and metallic, barely the size of a marble, into the onrushing obscurity. A second later, a hurricane exploded on the deck and the darkness was swept away. Revealing Grue, prone on the deck, clearly knocked down by the same wind bomb that dissipated his power.

Seeing the opening, knowing Kaiser would take it, Regent shoved the pain aside and focused his power on Kaiser. Only the Empire's leader wasn't looking at Grue, wasn't capitalising on his opening. He was looking right back at Regent, surrounded by a ring of blades lancing up from the metal at his feet.

As fast as he was, the blades still scored lines of fire along Regent's back as he dove over the side of the boat.

Water boiled and bubbled around him, dragging and shoving at his lanky body. His thick coat of fur was heavy with water. His injured arm was almost useless. Still Regent found it easy to kick and wriggle his way towards the surface. Worry driving him as much as giant impossibly strong muscles.

Though he'd never been able to do it for real, it was easy to open his eyes underwater in his boosted form. The salt didn't bother him at all, though it did sting at his wounds. What did bother Regent, very much in fact, was the buoy that splashed into the water above him. Even from beneath he recognised one of the ones that had been lined up along the edge of the deck.

Another hit the water, and another, and another. Realisation crept cold through Regent's limbs and he redoubled his efforts to get back to air. Too late.

Every one of the buoys sprouted thin lines that glinted in the lights of the yacht. Lines that shot out and twined around each other, weaving a barrier just under the surface of the water. Sealing him off from the air.

Regent slammed into the net of blades and tried to tear it aside. The metal was easy enough to destroy, even if the edges cut at his hand, but he already knew what was coming.

Sure enough, he'd barely begun to tear through when the metal sprouted spikes pointed down. They began to grow and he had to choose between diving and being skewered.

Floating low enough to be safe from any sudden growth, Regent felt his mighty lungs start to burn. Panic had never left him all the way. Not even when his feelings were at their deadest.

Now it was all he felt.

Later, Alec would reflect on the experience and decide that perhaps feeling wasn't always a good thing. He'd try to find peace with the betrayal that his emotions had committed. The loss of control. Eventually he'd start to ponder the similarities between what his panic had done to him, and what his power did to others.

At the time though, Regent just really really really wanted to breathe.

It wasn't long before his screaming lungs drove him up into the blades, flinching back then pushing froward through the forest of needle-sharp spikes holding him back. He saw flashes of dark and light through the gaps in the metal, couldn't think to understand what they meant. The metal wasn't moving any more but tearing through it took so long, too long. Dark clouded the edges of his vision and thought became harder and harder and...

Weight. So much weight. Life. Water. Both weighed him down. Dragged him towards some deep dark place where he could finally escape the weight.

It hadn't been his fault. Jean-Paul knew that, he knew that. He'd been a child. He'd been told it was okay. It was what he was meant to do...but...but he'd known it was wrong. After. He'd left, and he'd stopped doing those things. He'd stopped because he never ever wanted to do them at all. He'd still done them. The weight didn't care.

He hurt all over, especially his arm, but that was a distant thing. The weight was right there. It had always been there, even when he couldn't feel it. Now he just had to let go and-

_'What the fuck am I thinking?'_

Strength came from somewhere. It didn't matter, the metal tore like very sharp and vindictive tissue paper.

_'What kind of emo crap is this?'_

The spikes held longer, thick enough to stand against his weakness. Then they began to bend too.

_'So I'm a little guilty? So what?'_

The hole was open, his body would barely move, all he had to do was reach out and drag himself up.

_'They need me. She needs me.'_

He had no more strength. His lungs were empty, his arm wouldn't move, nor would his legs. Even his tail hung limp.

_'Come on. Move! Come on!'_

As he sank, the dark enveloping his world, Alec began to cry. Blackness took hold of him and lifted him away. Alec struggled with the tiny power he had left, resolved to spit in death's eye if nothing else.

Then the water fell away and there was air. Sweet sweet air. Filling his lungs as he gasped and choked on his life, suspended in a cloud of impossibly dark fog. It felt like fluffy concrete. He hugged it one-handed and babbled thanks to anything and everything that could hear him.

And then a screech of metal on bone reminded him of the life or death battle that was raging.

A juggernaut of bone and fur was flying off the side of the yacht, something metal clutched in its arms. Before Alec's bleary eyes, that little metal thing shouted...something, and a wedge of steel shot out of the water towards the juggernaut. Grue. That was the juggernaut's name.

Before Alec could process the massive blade about to possibly -probably- slice Grue in half, which would be bad both because his power was holding Alec up, and because of the whole best friend thing; Grue was yanked out of the metal's path by a writhing shape of, wait, that was Runt.

She had leapt just behind Grue, close enough to grab on and pull him down and out of danger. The sudden change of direction freed Kaiser though, and the lethal wedge became a smooth half-tunnel to catch him and slide him to a stop on the metal surface rising to the surface. Allowing the power hungry Nazi to walk on water.

"Hack, pwuh!" Alec occupied himself coughing up half the ocean. The mostly solid darkness that he was lying on had a slope, leading back up to the yacht. So, keeping an eye on the fighters the entire time, Regent began to use his good arm to drag himself back to something like safety.

Battle paused as he did so. Not because of him, but because the three fighters were all busy. Kaiser reforming his armour into something thicker, more bulk and less ornamentation. Grue snarling and oozing blackness that flowed back to his body and formed a hazy armour around him. Runt shoving Othala back into the tangling embrace of her fur...

_'Holy shit.'_ Runt was practically wearing the Empire's healer as a crest. Her fur wrapped around arms and legs and everything else. Holding Othala in place and countering her feeble attempts to escape. _'So that's what Taylor was doing. Now if only Lisa's being as useful.'_

Thinking of them pulled his attention over to where the last of the Undersiders was fighting. If anything Bitch was having an even worse time of it.

Fenja and Menja were both a dozen stories high, at least. Swarming their feet and even climbing them here and there, the dockworkers weren't doing shit. Strength to punch cracks into concrete didn't mean much against someone who could wrestle with skyscrapers. As for Bitch herself, Regent would have found her 'fight' funny if it wasn't for...actually, it was still a little funny.

Fenja -or was it Menja- was alternating between slammed the flat of her shield down on the ground and stomping around like she was performing some weird European folk dance. Menja -or was it, no, no he was pretty sure it was Menja- was keeping much calmer and instead thrusting her spear down at the ground any time Bitch stayed still long enough. The massive weapon punched tunnels into the concrete and asphalt, striking too hard for Bitch to risk taking even a glancing hit.

She was being worn down. _'Fuck.'_

The closer battle exploded into action and Regent tried even harder to get back to the yacht, where he could join the fight without risking another swim the moment Grue got distracted. Which couldn't possibly take long with the way things were going.

Somehow, even against Grue and Runt together, Kaiser was holding his own.

He hurled metal without any sign of caring for Othala's safety, denying Runt a human shield and forcing her into long range, sheer weight of fire overwhelming Runt's freaky camouflage fur. When Grue tried to use his power he'd toss more of those little lumps of, it looked like lead? Then they'd explode into raging winds that Grue's power couldn't resist even with its newfound solidarity. When either Undersider tried to get close Kaiser would summon walls of blades and slide away using some kind of trick with his armour and the metal beneath his feet.

None of which would matter in another few seconds. Regent was just feet from the yacht's railing, a few moments from being free to attack Kaiser. Even as drained as he was, Regent knew he could make the bastard stumble at the worst possible moment. He could turn the tide.

Unfortunately, a column of blue light beat him to it. There was a noise like thunder and the beam blew apart the dark bridge he'd been climbing. Regent felt gravity take and hold and lashed out, sinking the claws of his -mostly- uninjured arm deep into the side of the yacht, and hanging there.

Another beam nearly took Runt's arm off, then a glowing blue disk of runes and circles swept out of the sky and deposited a tech-covered figure on the pier. Another disc flew overhead towards the docks, while a massive shape of jagged metal tore through a warehouse to join the fight from the other side.

Regent choked back a scream of pain and fear and focused on the surprisingly chubby cape that was standing on the pier. Obviously a tinker, he had no protection from the jolt that Regent sent through his legs, and promptly fell flat on his face.

Normally it would have made Regent grin a trickster's grin. On this occasion he focused on swinging himself from side to side with strength and agility that defied his monstrous size. Catching glimpses all the while; Runt and Grue being driven back, the Dockworkers scattering away from Hookwolf, Bitch barely staying ahead of the storm of attacks being thrown her way.

He let go, his swing carrying him up and into the air, above the railing but over the water. Regent couldn't reach it with his useful arm, nor his legs, so it was a good thing he had a tail. The prehensile length wrapped clumsily around the rail and he acted like any well behaved pendulum.

Meaning he slammed into the heavily damaged deck, rolled over her injured arm with a yelp, and rose to his feet just in time to see both Bitch and her dogs catch the flat of Menja's spear and skip across the concrete like a stone skimming a lake.

Distracted by horror, hoping for her safety, Regent completely missed the tinker climbing to his feet and taking aim with some kind of tube covered in blinking lights. He did see the beam of light that shot out of it though. He saw it miss Runt, barely grazing the fur of her shoulder, and he saw the fur it had hit turn grey and still.

Only when the grey began to spread did he think to hit the tinker with another burst of power. He'd recovered enough to render the fatty helpless and twitching, but it was too late.

Grue leapt away from Kaiser, disengaging from the fight and sprinting for Runt. He sidestepped the blades that Kaiser made his metal platform sprout, then blasted out a layer of darkness to run on instead. Blades flowered around their new member as she flailed at the petrification spreading slowly over her shoulder; Grue slammed into her a moment before they closed like a bear trap, barely slowing as he swept her onto his shoulder and bounced from one black cloud to another.

The bone armoured werebeast landed on the deck with splintered boards and the groaning of a deck that had never been meant to take such punishment. Regent didn't care and he didn't seem to either, putting Runt down and immediately tearing at her fur. Othala was freed and tossed into the hot tub without hesitation, their leader too busy cutting away the stone to care about freeing her.

It didn't matter though. He couldn't cut fast enough, not through the toughened flesh of their boosted bodies. Runt was somehow holding herself still through the agony of him tearing at her shoulder, but it was meaningless. All pointless.

Which Grue must have realised too, because he stopped trying. He staggered back a step. Runt sagged to her knees and looked up at him, something in her eyes that Regent couldn't make out with the distance between them. Then Grue opened his mouth wider than Regent would have thought possible, and lunged forward to take a huge bite out of Runt's torso.

She flailed and rasped air in what would have been a scream if he hadn't severed her throat. Grue didn't stop, didn't even acknowledge the resistance. He shook and worried at her body until most of her chest came free of the rest of her in a spray of blood.

Warmth touched Regent's face and he dabbed at the fur with his good hand, looking at his fingers even though he already knew the smell. The blood had reached him, a good dozen yards away from them.

Funny that he couldn't really feel the warmth. No, he just felt numb.

Grue was mad, Runt and Bitch were dead. Even as he thought it a _thuthunk_ of metal on wood announced Kaiser's arrival, the noise followed by a strange ringing sound that Regent didn't understand until Kaiser stepped off his makeshift gangplank and onto the deck.

The bastard was clapping.

"Oh, bravo. Bravo. Eating your own comrade just to keep her from us. How like a mongrel dog." Kaiser's words were mocking and awful and Regent refused to listen to them. Not when he'd finally gotten some strength back in his limbs.

Standing was easy. Bracing to charge was easier. Kaiser wasn't even looking at him as Regent pounced-

Too late he saw that Othala was sitting upright in the hot tub. Kaiser turned so fast he was a blur, and a lance of metal took Regent in the side. Then two more disabled his other arm and pinned one of his legs. It was too far for him to kick with his other leg, but Regent did at least spit blood on Kaiser's chestplate. Not that he seemed to care.

Regent...was done. Alec was all that remained. Skewered, with a lovely view of his friends' ruin. Their reckless charge revealed for the folly it always was. He could only watch as Kaiser stalked towards Grue, their mad leader sitting on his haunches and staring warily back at the Empire's king.

Still...

They couldn't lose. Alec had found friendship. He had a crush. Life was fun and sad and happy and frustrating and he wasn't ready to die. So they couldn't lose.

His arms wouldn't move. Kicking his leg did nothing. Even his tail couldn't reach the ground. So, with nothing else left, Alec howled his defiance to whoever was listening.

"Arroooooooooo!"

Kaiser stopped, looking up and starting to chuckle. Except that another howl cut him off.

"Arwwwwooooooo!" Answered Rachel from across the water. Alec could see her hauling herself to her feet, a distant figure that looked so much smaller than she was. His heart beat a little easier at the sound, knowing what it meant even though they'd never agreed on it as a signal. She refused to give up too.

The thing that nobody realised at the time was that in Rachel Lindt's case, that insane refusal to admit defeat wasn't just a gesture. It was a war cry.

From his agonising vantage point, Alec was the first to see the truth. To understand her declaration of war.

It took the form of Hookwolf finally ceasing to torment his victims and actually slashing at one of the dockworkers; Only the distant figure wasn't blended into chunky salsa, it stopped his attack cold. Then another figure slammed into the gladiator's side and knocked him to the ground.

Both of them were growing, everywhere Alec could see the scattered dockworkers they were growing. The transformation that Taylor had given them swelling and bursting into fur and claws and bodies the size of tanks. Until the scattered force of low-grade capes had become a snarling mob of beasts large enough to threaten even the twin giants.

There was a long beat of stillness.

Then there was violence.

The battle on the docks turned instantly. The numbers were beyond overwhelming. Dozens of monsters dragged Fenja and Menja to the ground; others hurled everything in reach at Heimdall's floating platforms; Bitch roused her dogs and charged at Hookwolf like a horizontal avalanche, gathering allies along the way until he was hit by an almost solid mass of them.

Yet when Regent looked down, Kaiser was still standing with his arms folded. Confident.

The red-clad woman crawling out of the hot tub looked a lot less so. Still, she was staring at Kaiser, and Regent couldn't focus enough through the pain to disable her. Grue was still slumped by Runt's mutilated body, facing an invincible Kaiser by himsel-

The world blinked.

Grue jerked violently, Regent remembered someone, and Othala -who had been backing away from the imminent fight- tumbled to the floor on top of a young black girl in a leather jacket that fit her like a short dress. She had a purple dyed stripe in her hair, and half her face was swollen with bruises and she hadn't been there a moment ago.

Nor had the thin balding man and the blonde thinker that were standing beside the entangled Aisha and Othala.

The two of them stared at each other, spat wordless rage in one another's faces, and then Aisha punched Othala in the face. The healer barely flinched, groping at her belt for a knife and ripping it from the sheath to-

_'Aisha!'_ Agony had him almost helpless, but almost wasn't the same as completely and he still had a spark left in him.

-jerk her arm and toss the knife over the railing.

Othala swung her empty hand into Aisha's chest. It landed with a thump that made the younger girl wince, but accomplished little. She snarled something that only Aisha heard, not noticing the thin guy stepping closer. With all her attention on Aisha, she never saw the punch coming.

She slumped onto Aisha, out cold, and Kaiser's composure finally snapped.

"No! This Empire has weathered worse than you! I will not let it fall like this!" Kaiser whirled at the pounding beat of Grue's footsteps, the defeated façade abandoned for an all or nothing charge.

Kaiser stomped and a blade, thin enough to slide between plates of armour, shot from the ground and found a home in Grue's shoulder. The Undersider's leader barely slowed, snapping the blade and howling savage fury at Kaiser.

The next blade slowed him a little more. The one after that found his leg and made him stumble. They kept coming until the charge slowed and slowed and stopped.

A werewolf thrice Kaiser's height, armoured head to toe in bone, and he'd still won. Darkness gathered around Grue, then dissipated when Kaiser fingered one of the little balls of grey metal that hung from his belt.

None of them dared move, not even with the victorious howls that echoed across the water. Kaiser had pierced Grue's limbs with so many blades that their leader couldn't move, claiming himself yet another hostage. By the way that he looked around at them, Kaiser knew it.

He rose on a pillar of metal that formed itself beneath his feet, until he stood with his eyes level with Grue's. "Unlike your weakness, my strength is not reliant on any other. Did you think stripping me of Othala's aid would be enough? That a simple mask of despair would grant your surprise?" He leaned in to within a few inches of Grue's bloody face. "I suppose I should dig out what's left of young Taylor. I understand she can regenerate, and Gesellschaft may get some use even from her corpse."

Daniel Hebert made a terrible noise. Choking back a sob as he moaned with some strange blend of fury and despair. Kaiser stopped moving, turned to look at him and said, "Don't-"

Which was when Grue's chest exploded in a storm of blood and bone and a dark-furred shape that slammed into Kaiser and knocked him flying from his pedestal. They hit the floor and Runt slammed her fists into his helmet until the metal deformed around them.

Then she stood from Kaiser's limp body, body concealed by dark fur and bright gore, and threw her head back to howl in triumph. A tiny exhalation of breath stopped her before she could even begin.

Taylor Hebert lowered her head and turned to face her father as he stepped away from Aisha and Lisa. He opened his mouth, and no words came out. He stumbled a few more steps and tried again, still unable to talk. Then he stopped and held out his arms to his daughter, wearing a smile fit to outshine the moon.

She crashed into his chest. Sobbing and hiccuping and blubbering a dozen things at once until it all became gibberish. Muffled by her face being buried in her father's shirt.

He just wrapped his arms around her and held her so tight that his knuckles whitened. Even her tail wrapping around his leg didn't distract him.

Still caught in an agonising position, impaled a few times over, Alec bit back the pain and gave them a few minutes. Though it was considerably harder to bite back the spike of jealousy. He saw the same feeling on Aisha's face for a moment. Hell, with what he knew of the team, even Lisa and Brian were probably feeling that kind of thing.

Speaking of Brian, Alec noticed the older boy crawling out of ruin of his boosted form -via the hole Taylor had made with her chestburster impression- and began trying to grunt at him without spoiling the mood for the reunited parent and child.

They needed a nice discreet signal for 'get me the hell down from here this fucking hurts'. Maybe a growl and two barks?

Brian still had his transformation and he leapt high enough to grab Alec's tail and begin climbing up. Unfortunately his weight pulled Alec further down the blades and the shift proved too much for his control, a loud yelp shattering the mood and making Taylor look up a gasp in horror. Or maybe guilt. Alec thought he was due a little guilt.

Once the others joined in, they were able to cut him out after barely any screaming.

Finally he fell to the shattered remains of the yacht's deck and refused to stand up. At least until Aisha staggered over to him, shrugging off her brother's horrified fussing, and offered him a hand up.

Alec had regeneration on his side. Already the line that one of the blades had scored along his real ribs was healing. His friend, his crush, had no such luck. Her face was swollen badly on one side, and a little bruised on the other. She was definitely favouring her ribs on one side, and one of her hands made his stomach twist in anger just looking at it. Still, she had offered him the other one so he took it and then gave her a shoulder to lean on in turn.

"You look like shit." He prodded. Couldn't let her think he was going soft after all. _'Now where is that Nazi bitch.'_

Brian clearly had the same thought, already glaring at the empty decking around the hot tub when Alec realised it was empty. Both of them saw the pane of silver that hung in the air inside the cabin at the same time. Alec noticed a limp red-sleeved arm slipping through it, then it shattered into fading lights and was gone.

"What the fuck was that?" Aisha slurred through some definite damage to her jaw.

All eyes turned to Lisa, except Taylor's dad's.

"No." Lisa snapped. "No. We can deal with that shit another time. I want to go home and sleep. Now."

Nobody argued.

Together they picked their way across the deck to the gangplank, then down to the pier and that was when they all remembered that there had been another fight going on. One that Danny took an immediate and very personal interest in.

The docks were chaos. Very loud chaos. Though the fight was long over, with Empire guards and capes scattered around like abandoned dolls, the werewolves were still very much present.

Rachel stomped over to them, and Alec realised that it was the first time he'd been around her for more than a few seconds with only one of them boosted. Which made it the first time he'd really understood how fucking terrifying they were.

He knew Rachel. He liked Rachel. He was very sure Rachel wouldn't hurt him.

Nevertheless, when she was leaning over them and he barely stood higher than her knees...a lance of fear cut through him, no matter what he told himself. Pushing him to step slightly in front of Aisha and look around very carefully.

The docks swarmed with beasts just as big as her. Some smaller, some bigger, but none by much. They growled and snarled and yipped and yelped. Alec could see more than a dozen fights, at least twenty dockworkers merrily destroying anything they could reach, and a few that were doing things he didn't want to look too closely at.

Then there were the small knot of them, five in total, that had gathered around a shape that Alec realised had been missing from the pier. The chubby little tinker was sprawled on the ground, staring up at them and -Alec sniffed and wrinkled his nose- he had definitely pissed himself.

Not that anyone could blame him. Standing over him and growling softly, the five dockworkers were all at least sixteen feet tall, and one of them was well over that. The largest looked to be the leader of the group, probably because he was built like a bear that liked to pump iron. Just looking at him made Alec want to step in front of Aisha protectively, and then pick her up so they could run the fuck away.

So it took him a second to really grasp that Taylor's dad, the skinny balding guy, was walking towards the group with rage pouring off his every step.

_'...We went through all this, and he's about to get eaten.'_

Sure enough, the dockworkers turned to face him as he strode closer and while they initially growled happily, once they got a closer look at him the growls became a lot less happy. Alec didn't need Lisa to tell him that an angry stance was a bad idea when dealing with things that much bigger than you.

_'Why the fuck isn't Taylor stopping him?!'_ But when Alec looked at her, he found his newest teammate looking almost eager. At least the rest of his team looked as horrified as he felt.

Taylor's dad stopped about five feet from the largest dockworker, looking up at a monster so big that he was almost leaning backwards just to meet its eyes. Then he looked around at the chaos of the docks one more time and bellowed, "Stop!"

...and they did. They actually did.

All across the docks the werewolves that had been dockworkers a few hours ago stopped whatever they were doing and turned to look at him.

Including the massive specimen he was standing right beside. Only that particular dockworker didn't just stare, he closed the gap between them with a single stride, and crouched down to look Taylor's dad in the eye as best he could. Then he began to snarl. Low in his throat, lips slowly drawing back from his teeth. He leant closer and closer as his jaws began to part.

"Kurt!" Mr Hebert roared his rage, face twisted with anger. "What the fuck do you think you're doing!"

The giant werewolf flinched back. The skinny little human promptly ignored him completely and turned to address the entire docks.

"All of you! Stop acting like animals!" Some of them actually managed to look ashamed. "The cops will be here any minute! We need to go!"

The horde of terrifying beasts was frozen, like a gaggle of children caught misbehaving and unsure how much trouble they were in.

"What are you waiting for! Get to the tunnels, now!"

They broke into a run as one, streaming towards a warehouse off in the distance with the speed of those who know the last person to get somewhere will be getting yelled at. Meanwhile the man who spurred it all stayed standing where he was, calmly shouting more detailed directions here and there.

A disant glitter in the sky put Alec on edge, and he turned to his team to find Lisa already pointing it out. The heroes were on their way. Time to get the hell out of dodge.

Rachel yipped at her dogs and they rushed over, offering their backs to the team. Which immediately lead to some awkwardness as Brian and Taylor both climbed on Angelica, then Brian offered a hand up to Aisha who turned her nose up and clambered stiffly onto Brutus' back, which meant Alec had to follow her and all the while Lisa looked on with a smirk that only shook a little when she turned to look at Taylor's dad.

The man himself was looking at the brightening sparks of the flying heroes. A considering look on his face. Once Lisa had climbed up onto Brutus as well, he coughed and met Brian's eyes when their leader looked his way.

"Well, Grue was it? Would you mind if I came with you for now? I think we have a few things to sort out between your group and the Union, and I'd like to spend some more time with my daughter while I have the chance."

Brian took a moment to react, looking stunned and a little awed, then he nodded as smoothly as he could. "I, yes sir. That would be fine."

Alec sniggered beneath his breath and made sure Aisha wasn't going to fall off when Brutus started moving. Watching with a grin as Taylor's dad made a point of sitting between his daughter and Brian.

Rachel followed the dockworkers and as her dogs followed behind her at an easy lope, Alec found himself laughing outright.

_'All in all. Not a bad night.'_


	32. Sixth Letter

I, Amelia Dallon, of 4 The Gates, Brockton Bay, MA, 02301-1027 make oath and say as follows:

I make this affidavit based on my personal knowledge, unless otherwise stated, and that the following facts and figures are accurate to the best of my knowledge.

Victoria Dallon, my sister by adoption, has possessed for the past four (4) years the powers of; flight, extreme strength, extreme durability, and radial emotional influence.

She has used these powers under the alias 'Glory Girl' in order to act as a vigilante for the same period of time.

She has operated as part of the Independent Hero Team 'New Wave' (previously known as 'The Brockton Bay Brigade') for the full duration of her time as a vigilante.

I, Amelia Dallon, have possessed for the past three (3) years the power of; touch-mediated manipulation of biologically active matter, used principally in order to heal. These powers are Manton limited to effect only those other than myself. I publicly claim to be unable to alter neural tissue owing to its complexity. This claim is false. This claim is made to avoid requests to alter my patients' personalities.

I have used these powers under the alias 'Panacea' in order to act as a healer for the same period of time.

I have operated as part of the Independent Hero Team 'New Wave' (previously known as 'The Brockton Bay Brigade') for the full duration of this time. However I have not taken part in their vigilante activities, owing to my lack of combat applicable powers without significant risk of collateral damage.

Starting with an incident on or around the fourth (4th) day of November, 2009, Victoria Dallon has committed seventeen (17) acts of grievous bodily harm on suspected or known criminals.

Each of these criminals lacked any parahuman ability, and displayed no signs of parahuman ability.

Each of these incidents where the victims were known criminals involved injury far in excess of what could be judged as necessary for their incapacitation.

Of these incidents, the names of eleven (11) of the victims are unknown to me and I doubt my ability to identify them from memory.

Of these incidents, the names of six (6) of the victims are known to me and are as follows:

Gregory Allen Smith, affiliated with the 'Merchants'.  
Virginia Wellard, affiliated with the 'Empire Eighty Eight'.  
Georgia Wellard, affiliated with the 'Empire Eighty Eight'.  
Li Ann Mathews, aka Li-li, affiliated with the 'Asian Bad Boyz'.  
Peter Anderson, affiliated with the 'Empire Eighty Eight'.  
Daniel Chung, aka B-Rat, affiliated with the 'Asian Bad Boyz'.

In all seventeen (17) of these incidents, Victoria Dallon enlisted my aid in order to heal the injuries inflicted on the victims and thus eliminate the principle evidence of her wrongdoings.

At no point did I seriously consider denying her requests for aid. This was because of my feelings towards her.

Following my adoption by Carol Dallon and Mark Dallon when I was five (5) years of age, I have been raised as their daughter.

Owing to this, my relationship with Victoria Dallon has been one of siblings.

For the past two and a half (2.5) years, I have possessed significant romantic feelings for Victoria Dallon. Owing to our relationship as sisters I have found these feelings a source of significant distress.

I was involved in the recent (3 days previous) conflict between the 'Empire Eighty Eight' and the forces of other parahuman groups active in Brockton Bay.

During this conflict, Victoria Dallon and I responded to the detonation of a powerful explosive at Brockton Savings and Loans.

Upon arrival we were confronted by the Villain Team 'Undersiders' consisting of members; Grue, Tattletale, Regent, Rachel Lindt (aka Hellhound, aka Bitch), and Taylor Hebert (aka Runt).

Given the circumstances (extreme danger, villains acting with force far beyond the norm) a truce was agreed between myself and Victoria Dallon, and the 'Undersiders'. PRT and emergency responders agreed to recognise the truce for the same reasons of special circumstances.

Shortly after the agreement of the truce, members of the 'Empire Eighty Eight' arrived in the area with the intent of killing or disabling myself. At the time this intent was not known. These members consisted of; Cassie Herrenson (aka Rune), Felicity Pedato (aka Long Knife), and Nocht.

Violence broke out between the parahumans present. Lacking combat powers and being concerned for my sister I remained at the side of the battle, along with Taylor Hebert (aka Runt) who was unable to fight due to the 'Empire Eighty Eight' members threatening the life of her kidnapped father, Daniel Hebert.

Victoria Dallon was disabled (severe electric shock) by Nocht.

Cassie Herrenson (aka Rune) was disabled (encased in PRT issue containment foam) by Regent.

Felicity Pedato (aka Long Knife) was partially disabled (multiple broken bones; severe bruising) by Grue and Rachel Lindt (aka Hellhound, aka Bitch).

Felicity Pedato (aka Long Knife) subsequently struck at myself with a knife propelled telekinetically. Given her injuries this attack caught me by surprise and pierced my right lung. I was severely injured and began converting the commensal bacteria of my body; into additional clotting agents in order to prolong the time before I died of blood loss, and into additional oxygen carrying agents in order to prolong the time I could function without the use of a lung.

Nocht was disabled by the combined actions of the 'Undersiders'.

Given our truce, Taylor Hebert (aka Runt) transformed me into a dog (Labrador) using her powers. My injuries remained in the transformed body, however the transformation granted a potent regeneration power that quickly healed my wounds, though with considerable pain.

Unforeseen however, either the transformation itself or the regenerative power it granted, effected the feelings of romantic love that I held for Victoria Dallon. These feelings were completely absent while I was transformed, while all my other emotions were heightened greatly.

At this point I realised that Victoria Dallon had used her emotional manipulation power on me over an extended period of time, to gradually enhance my feelings towards her. This was the root of my incestuous feelings towards her, and the reason I had been unable to deny her requests to conceal her crimes.

My heightened emotions made the realisation extremely disturbing, as my anger and disgust at what was done to me was amplified. Worse, once I was healed Taylor Hebert (aka Runt) used her powers again, to restore my normal form, and my incestuous feelings for Victoria Dallon resumed.

Given these feelings, and my realisation of Victoria Dallon's extended crimes against myself (including but not limited to; assault with a parahuman ability, emotional abuse, and mental alteration without consent) I sought to distance myself from her before she could use her power again.

Based on my use of modified micro-organisms to save myself, I realised that I could use the same method to alter my own brain and remove the master effect I had been placed under. After testing the method on one of Rachel Lindt's (aka Hellhound, aka Bitch) dogs, I was able to remove the effect and was no longer subject to the feelings Victoria Dallon had imposed on me.

Once the conflict with the 'Empire Eighty Eight' was over, I claimed that I had been called in to help with the victims of the various bombings and attacks. Using this excuse I was able to travel alone to PRT Headquarters and reveal what had been done to me.

Master/Stranger protocols and medical examinations have supported these statements. See attached files.

See also, video file taken from a phone belonging to Regent of the 'Undersiders'. Video shows Victoria Dallon attacking Daniel Chung, aka B-Rat. The phone was dropped during the ensuing chase and I picked it up before the PRT response arrived.

I, Amelia Dallon, did not warn Victoria Dallon or any other member of my family (excluding my mother Carol Dallon, who acted as my lawyer throughout) that I intended to accuse her of these crimes. I did not in any way aid in her escape from the PRT agents and heroes (Armsmaster, and Dauntless) that were sent to arrest her. I do not currently have any contact with Victoria Dallon, nor does any other member of my family.

I offer my complete and continuing cooperation in bringing Victoria Dallon to justice.

I, Amelia Dallon, hereby affirm that the information given here is true to the best of my knowledge. My recounting of events is accurate to my memory of them, and is intended as a factual record of the events.

Signed: _Amelia Dallon_

Signed: _Carol Dallon_ (Lawyer to the above signed)

Dated:_ 05/03/11_

* * *

A siren rang out in the distance and Vicky flinched deeper into her hoodie. The smell immediately made her regret it.

She'd never worn something for more than a day before in her life. Never. Not even on that camping trip where dad forgot to bring half the luggage and Amy...

Now she'd been wearing the same clothes for four days straight. Sweat and filth had mixed into a muck that was caked into every fibre of them. Her forcefield had held it off her skin at least, until she gave into her fury and punched a wall, now it was pressed to her skin and all she could think of was a shower.

That and food. Hot food and hot water. Maybe some nice hot clothes fresh out of the dryer, just like Amy...

Glory Girl was huddled against the wall of an alley, somewhere in the docks. She didn't really know where. She didn't care.

Independent of her will, her hands found their way to the pocket at the front of her hoodie and the damp pages crumpled within. The pages that she'd found coming out of her mom's dumb old fax machine. The relic was always spitting out some work documents or another and it jammed if there was too much in the output tray, so Vicky had gone to clear it and found...

It was a pack of lies...except for the parts that weren't.

It had been six, not seventeen, but she couldn't say she didn't do it.

She'd known, known for certain, that every one of them had deserved it. They'd been violent criminals, one and all. Hadn't they?

As for Amy, Vicky had never meant to...

She'd never thought...

Only...

Sitting against a damp wall of tired old bricks, surrounded by trash and mud, Victoria Dallon tried to think back. Tried to remember the last time Amy hadn't done whatever she asked her sister to do.

Surely there'd been times. Surely Amy had told her to get lost, that she was busy, that she didn't want to do whatever dumb favour Vicky needed from her.

_'I just...can't remember...'_

It wasn't like Vicky didn't know any other siblings. Her friend Sumi had a little sister and was always going on about how much the little brat drove her mad, even though they were barely a year apart in age. Not like Amy, Vicky's little sister had always...no...no, up until a few years ago they'd disagreed all the time. Yeah, Amy was always arguing with her. Right up until...

For the hundredth time, Vicky ran headfirst into a thought that made her sick to her very core. A thought that made her want to reach inside and rip out her guts just so they'd stop twisting in on themselves. Coiling around and around in her stomach until she wondered if they'd just burst out of her and show the world what she'd done.

The urge to take off and fly straight for the nearest hero surged through her, then crumpled beneath the same anger that had pushed her to run when she saw the PRT vans pulling up to her house. The furious thought that had made her dive into the bay and crawl through a mile of silt to throw off her pursuers.

_'I didn't mean to do it.'_

It wasn't fair. They couldn't, couldn't tear her life apart because of something she hadn't even known she was doing. Maybe she was a terrible sister for not noticing how Amy was changing, but Amy had fixed herself up and it was all fine now. Why couldn't Amy just...just...

_'...just forgive me...'_

Vicky hated herself for even thinking it. Knew that Amy had every right to hate her forever.

Still...the thought wouldn't go away.

Was she really a monster if she'd never meant to do it? Didn't people feel sorry for that guy, Ash Beast? How was it any different? It wasn't like she'd attacked a school like that psycho Runt. Or blown up places full of people like the Nazis.

A shiver broke her concentration, pulling her from her thoughts and back into the real world, where she was cold and wet and...

She'd been sleeping in whatever abandoned buildings she could find, confident in her safety at least. It was horrible, she woke up cold and aching all over, but she could find places to sleep.

Food though...she hadn't had time to grab her wallet and she couldn't think of any way to get money without revealing herself and getting caught...except for the obvious...but she couldn't...she wouldn't steal...

On cue, her stomach growled. Not the loud protests that she was used to, the ones that it had made for the first two days. Now it was a weak little noise, like a kitten begging for milk. Milk sounded so good. Milk and fresh warm cookies, with a steak.

Vicky pulled her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. Skinny jeans had looked great a few days ago, now they just felt thin and stiff and completely incapable of keeping out the cold.

It was so damn cold.

But...

She couldn't go home. Her mom had signed the letter too, had seen what Vicky had been doing. A thousand lectures about doing the right thing echoed in her memory, condemning her.

She couldn't go to Dean. He'd shelter her and put himself at risk...or worse, he might turn her away. Tell her she was a monster. That he'd never love someone like her. Just imagining it had Vicky choking back a sob.

Then she realised that there was no point holding it back. There was no one to hear her. No one to care...

She was alone, hungry, covered in filth, surrounded by trash, hated by the one person she'd trusted above all others to have her back...

Glory Girl began to cry.


	33. Seventh Letter

running shell...  
shell active: check (1 of 5)  
check - shell stable

anti-tracking suite online...  
anti-tracking suite active

penetration suite online...

..  
personal note: design robot to type rapidly while programs run

...

addendum to personal note: design keyboard to type itself very rapidly while programs run; obtain mannequins; obtain clothing from film Hackers  
personal note: inquire re. Armsmaster's experience of film Hackers

penetration suite complete

access granted: secure comms: - senior director authorisation level

begin transcript:

Chief Director Costa-Brown "Director Piggot, when this meeting was first pencilled into each of our calendars, it was made clear to you that it would be attended by every Senior Director. As well as myself."

Director Piggot "Ma'am, if you'll-"

Chief Director Costa-Brown "I was not finished. That was made clear to you five days ago. Five days to clean up the mess that the Nazis made. A courtesy from us to yourself. So in the spirit of that courtesy I ask you why it is that only this morning did I receive your report on yet another disaster out of Brockton?"

Senior Director Aaronson "In summary. The day after the Empire Eighty Eight's assault on your city, the renowned healer Panacea came to you with the claim that a beloved independent hero of your city was in fact a sadistic Master who had all but enslaved her until a chance combination of powers set her free. The day before yesterday, you verified her claims and attempted to arrest said hero, but failed. All leading up to the events of yesterday, where Panacea and her mother attended a press conference and unleashed what I can only describe as a faecal hurricane."

Chief Director Costa-Brown "Yet, while lower level reports have remained consistent, not one alert has come across my desk in the last few days regarding these events. Not one report from the Director overseeing this."

Director Piggot "I did not know the facts until after she finished the screening. After that I was too busy dealing with the matter to report it."

Chief Director Costa-Brown "Be careful of your tone Emily, we are all busy. You chose not to report it until this morning because you hoped that it would be good news. Another public relations coup. Instead of what it is, which is...how did you put it earlier Claire?"

Senior Director Aaronson "One more crap on the turdheap, Chief Director."

note: Claire Aaronson is unexpectedly fond of profanity

Director Piggot "That's an exaggeration."

Senior Director Wilkins "If anything it is understatement. Have you seen the interview The New York Times is running today? The one where Thomas Calvert spoke at length regarding the lack of cape accountability among heroes in Brockton? Where he all but declared our own ranks were as bad as this Glory Girl? That our heroes are 'too capable' for her to have escaped unless they went easy on her?

Emily you're a capable Director, I know you can recognise a rich and powerful individual declaring his intent to plant your head on a pike."

Senior Director Hearthrow "Metaphorically."

note: Adalie Hearthrow is unusually well guarded from electronic surveillance; increase surveillance priority

Director Piggot "With what I remember of the man, maybe not. Nevertheless he's a rich CEO, not a supervillain. I have larger worries right now."

Chief Director Costa-Brown "Yes, I suppose you do. For now"

Senior Director Wilkins "We already agreed not to take disciplinary action Emily, however as a friend let me speak plainly. If it wasn't for the good will you garnered with the Winslow incident this would be a very different conversation."

personal note: Charles Wilkins looks like a nice man; examine facial structure to incorporate key elements into avatar image

Senior Director Aaronson "Good will that has been spent. The blows you've struck for reassuring parents of their children's safety in the school system, and forging Shadow Stalker into a success story for probationary Wards...they won't protect you from anything else."

Director Piggot "Then it's time for me to start reporting success. This was supposed to be a meeting concerning the recent attack on my city after all."

Senior Director Tagg "Success isn't the term I would use."

Director Piggot "I won't shy away from responsibility, you all know me better than that, personally or by reputation. That doesn't mean I will stand for being made a scapegoat for Gesellschaft successfully smuggling a strike force into my city."

Senior Director Aaronson "Your city."

Senior Director Tagg "Stow it. She's right. They made it to her city because other people screwed the pooch. I'm sending you all a list right now."

Chief Director Costa-Brown "You included yourself on this list."

note: list includes myself

personal note: remind PRT Director Tagg that I do not work for him

Senior Director Tagg "Yes ma'am."

Senior Director Aaronson "False modesty? Really?"

Senior Director Tagg "Honour actually. Not something I'd expect a pencil pusher to understand."

Senior Director Aaronson "How dare-"

Chief Director Costa-Brown "Stop. If you want to behave like children, do it on your own time."

Director Piggot "My point is that while I admit to failures in our intelligence gathering on the Empire, and complacency concerning their power base, I don't see how I could have predicted this. We still have no idea how Kaiser even secured so much aid from Gesellschaft, let alone how they smuggled them into the country."

Senior Director Tagg "Most likely they used Gesellschaft's second-in-command to block thinker surveillance, dodged more traditional methods with decoys, and met Kaiser's yacht out in international waters. Has anyone traced the ownership of that gilded monstrosity yet?"

Senior Director Hearthrow "Shell companies within shell companies. The joint taskforce with Interpol is still digging."

Senior Director Tagg "Good. The bastards have gone a long way past being extended the usual mercy."

Senior Director Wilkins "For once I agree with him. We can't allow people to think we'll let foreign groups toy with us without recourse, or domestic groups enlist their aid for this kind of violence. We can't show the Empire any mercy."

Director Piggot "I wanted to talk to Armstrong about that actually."

Senior Director Armstrong "Yes Emily?"

Director Piggot "Sir. I was hoping that you could encourage Purity to speak out."

Senior Director Armstrong "I'm told she already plans to. At some point."

Senior Director Wilkins "Sooner would be better. She has that milf charm going for her, should help distract the conversation from questions like why we allowed Chaste and Lung to keep fighting for several hours after everything else had died down."

Director Piggot "Allowed? Allowed?!"

Senior Director Aaronson "Now look here Emily, the reinforcements that were sent to you were all that could be spared. Aside from the usual chaos, Eidolon was engaged with disaster relief in the Congo, Legend was in Greece fighting Laserlight and Kronos, Alexandria-"

Director Piggot "I understand why we didn't receive any reinforcements on that level! The world has a lot of threats kicking around, I know, but what exactly was I meant to do to stop those two monsters fighting? Throw Bastion and Armsmaster at them?"

Senior Director Tagg "I've met Armsmaster. I wager you could have just thrown him at them by himself."

Senior Director Armstrong "With respect for his service I've seen Armsmaster fight and I've seen Interpol's records, no he couldn't beat Chaste. Perhaps hold him off for a while, but not defeat him. Tinkers depend too much on preparation.

Lung is one thing, but sending Armsmaster against a man just as feared, whose file still has a question mark after his power?"

Senior Director Hearthrow "Entropokinesis? Really?"

Senior Director Armstrong "Names are difficult, and it's just our best guess at the moment. Though investigating the aftermath of their battle may well solve the mystery. In any case I doubt even Dragon could have come out of that one unscathed. Emily was right to let it play itself out."

note: propose increase in Chaste's ranking on Guild target list, increase priority on developing countermeasures

Director Piggot "It's not like they were causing much more than property damage after the first hour. Civilians in the area had either fled or been killed. Now if I may return to the good news portion of the discussion?"

Chief Director Costa-Brown "By all means."

Director Piggot "We captured Kaiser, Rune, Long Knife, Nocht, Fenja, Menja, Crusader, Subject 08, Black Death, Ratte, and Forest."

Senior Director Wilkins "We can suppress the details of the captures that weren't subdued by our heroes. Focus on those that were. The pictures of Armsmaster and Kid Win fighting 08 are solid gold. Shame they were posted anonymously, I'd personally recommend an award for those shots."

Director Piggot "I wanted to bring up Crusader in particular. I already have a request from Purity to release him into her custody for rehabilitation. Not that I plan to grant it, but it seems like something you could use to negotiate with her Sir."

Senior Director Armstrong "Yes...that could work. Of course giving him to Purity is too much, but placing him with a Protectorate team? Maybe even my own."

Senior Director Aaronson "The man is a Neo-Nazi. How is that going to look?"

Senior Director Wilkins "No, they're right about this. It has potential. We have been considering taking a more open approach to rehabilitation of villains. Given that he wasn't directly involved in the attacks on civilians, he's not beyond salvaging."

Senior Director Hearthrow "I will assign resources to profile him in depth."

Chief Director Costa-Brown "Then a decision can be made once we have that available to us. Right now I'd like to hear from Emily regarding the elephant in the room."

Senior Director Armstrong "Hm hm. I've been waiting to hear more about this Emily, don't keep me waiting any longer now."

Director Piggot "...Well, with apologies to those who already know, I'll recount what we know in full.

Runt first came to our attention due to the Winslow incident. Real name is Taylor Hebert. Classic school shooter profile; failing grades, family's poor, mother dead, single father is a firebrand member of our own Dockworkers' Union."

Senior Director Armstrong "Ah, the ones responsible for the Bay's distinctive shoreline?"

Director Piggot "The very same."

Senior Director Tagg "Apples. Trees."

Director Piggot "True. Now as usual we're not certain of her trigger. It may have been the mother's death, but we think it was a combination of isolation and several years of bullying. Including an incident serious enough that it drew a police investigation, though with how our Mayor keeps slashing their budget it's unsurprising that they settled for ascertaining it was one of the gangs that did it."

Senior Director Wilkins "So she rubbed a gang member the wrong way?"

Director Piggot "The signs are all there. The teachers aren't saying a thing even with lawyers and union reps, which is only to be expected from a heap like Winslow."

Senior Director Aaronson "Eyes on the pension, ass-covering abounds."

Director Piggot "More tellingly, the students are keeping tight lipped as well. Which almost certainly means they're too scared to speak up for a nobody like Runt was."

Senior Director Wilkins "Therefore, gangs. It would fit my experience of these kinds of schools. Which as I'm sure you all know, is extensive."

Director Piggot "I doubt you'd think much of your counterpart in this place. Principal Blackwell definitely isn't aiming to turn her school around. In fact she's barely tapping the brakes. So of course Runt's problems were lost beneath a mountain of bigger problems."

Senior Director Wilkins "You mentioned isolation?"

Director Piggot "Yes, I was getting to that. Shadow Stalker is close friends with a civilian, Emma Barnes, who was once close to Runt. The families were friends, stayed that way even after the girls drifted apart. It would seem that Runt didn't handle that very well, and grew obsessed with her old friend.

A girl like Runt wouldn't have been able to go after the gangs, even after she got her powers. So she concocted a delusion that played to her obsession with Miss Barnes. That all her misery was down to the popular girls picking on her."

Senior Director Hearthrow "Not unheard of."

Director Piggot "Emma Barnes is a model student and well liked by her peers. Her father works with Brandish. She volunteers her weekends in a damn soup kitchen, or something like that. The girl has been under scrutiny since she started hanging around a probationary Ward and everything points to her being a good influence on Shadow Stalker. Not some budding sociopath.

Then we have Madison Clements, whose family name is probably familiar to Director Armstrong at least."

Senior Director Armstrong "They must have gone bankrupt if they're sending their daughter to a place like that."

Director Piggot "Apparently she requested it, and obviously they've pulled her out after all this. Off to some expensive boarding school I imagine. As for the rest, of course there's Sophia Hess, Shadow Stalker, whose actions speak for themselves. I won't list the rest of the girls but even the bad eggs amongst them are saints for a place like Winslow."

Senior Director Wilkins "It's likely that some of the girls were involved in the pettier aspects of the bullying. Teenagers jumping on a bandwagon for popularity."

Director Piggot "We thought as much. Which was a big mistake for them, because eventually Runt snapped. She waited in a bathroom that the girls frequented-"

Senior Director Tagg "All together?"

Director Piggot "...yes. Girls do that. Anyway, they came in and while there's the kind of fuzzy accounts that always come with trauma, the details have been the right kind of consistent. Runt attacks Emma Barnes, the other girls defend her, Runt draws a knife, cuts Shadow Stalker, then she outs herself by turning Miss Barnes into a terrier."

Senior Director Armstrong "I understand there's an emotional effect to it?"

Director Piggot "Amplified emotions, yes. Which made it very unpleasant for the young woman. We found her and Miss Clements all the way on the other side of the school."

Senior Director Wilkins "Poor kids. They must have been terrified."

Director Piggot "Undoubtedly. At this point Shadow Stalker demonstrated the model behaviour that she's been lauded for. She herded the other girls out and fought without her powers for as long as she could. Between then and now, Runt has revealed the power to change her shape to boost speed, strength, senses, agility, size, as well as granting varying canine characteristics."

Senior Director Armstrong "And granting those forms to others."

Director Piggot "At the time we didn't know the full extent of her Striker aspect. Or else I would have ordered a much larger response.

Shadow Stalker reported that Runt got angrier and angrier and eventually became much bigger and stronger before losing all control. Speaking plainly, if our Ward didn't keep distracting her after that point I suspect we'd have a serious death toll on our hands. Instead we got minor structural damage to the third floor, and a lot of very nice pictures of an injured villain fleeing the heroes shortly after reinforcements arrived.

For a few days we heard nothing, during which time we investigated her, set guards on what we expected to be her next targets, and pushed through a warrant to search her father's house."

Senior Director Wilkins "He didn't grant access?"

Director Piggot "He openly fought the warrant. Called in favours, but we pushed it through. Didn't find much anyway. The usual signs of a troubled teenager with no friends, a computer with a few searches for knife fighting techniques amidst all the things teenagers normally go online for.

Then Runt snuck through our perimeter and broke into her house through the basement. She grabbed some personal possessions from her room, then assaulted an agent. Triumph reacted in exemplary fashion especially given that one of our own had been attacked. He shot to wound, but her father distracted him and she escaped."

Senior Director Tagg "Some perimeter. The crazy little bitch got in and out of it."

Director Piggot "I'm sorry but we don't have Houston's resources. We had to bring in police to complete the perimeter and they don't have appropriate training for a werewolf charging them. She put them both in the hospital and vanished into a blizzard."

Senior Director Armstrong "Okay, scene set, we're all on the same page. Now get to the interesting part."

Director Piggot "As you wish. She vanished after that, not a sign of her for a month. Or so we thought. In fact she popped up just over two weeks after vanishing. A raid on an Empire base located in an old paper mill. We didn't realise at the time, but she must have joined the Undersiders at some point during those two weeks. Another month, or thereabouts, and we come to the Empire's all out attack on the city and the fight that revealed what was going on."

Senior Director Hearthrow "You interrogated Fenja and Menja."

Director Piggot "In exchange for not going to the Birdcage, they sang like they belonged in one.

The mill raid was the start. The Undersiders showed up, snuck in as fits their prior MO, then they beat and maimed everyone in the base who didn't run away. After that they hit the Empire almost every day for a fortnight. Hard.

After the mill raid Kaiser figured out that Runt had joined up. The twins didn't know how, but they thought it had something to do with the Empire's new tinker."

note: request priority reclamation of unknown tinker's creations; none yet reclaimed; possible applications for containment foam project

Chief Director Costa-Brown "That would be the one who can make underground bases by himself, the one you failed to capture."

Director Piggot "The man made himself an escape tunnel long before we arrived on that scene.

If I may return to my report? After Kaiser realised Runt had joined them, he was able to piece together what was happening.

He realised that Runt doesn't just turn people into dogs, she turns them into any of the forms that she can use. Meaning low grade brutes and movers. Going by what happened at the docks she can transform as many of them as she can touch and whose loyalty she can count on."

Senior Director Armstrong "No master effect?"

Director Piggot "Mental effects certainly, we know that from the experiences of Miss Barnes and Agent Forstead, not to mention the change in the Undersiders' methods since she joined them. However Grue is still leading them and they seem to tempering her violence significantly. If there's a master effect it hasn't kicked in yet."

Senior Director Aaronson "...Oy Veh..."

note: yiddish exclamation of dismay

Director Piggot "What's worse is that Hellhound's power can target those she's transformed."

Senior Director Armstrong "For those who don't pay much attention to East Coast villains. Hellhound turns dogs into monsters the size of tanks. Big ones. We suspected a master component but..."

Director Piggot "Again, no sign of a change in the Undersiders' leadership."

Chief Director Costa-Brown "So to summarise, the minor villain you ignored for the last month is in fact an A-Class threat."

Director Piggot "Ma'am, I don't think-"

Chief Director Costa-Brown "I'm not blaming you. Not for this. It's much more important that we focus on what happens next, because as it stands we have a pair of extremely violent young villains, both without identities to lose, who can combine their powers to turn anyone they want into a living siege weapon. I understand the Undersiders at least lack unpowered underlings?"

Director Piggot "Unfortunately, Runt's father gives her ready access to a large number of angry men and women who by all accounts are very loyal to her father. While we believe Kaiser's coma to be the work of the Undersiders, Fenja and Menja were clear that Hookwolf was torn apart by the same mob of dockworkers that brought them down."

Senior Director Tagg "It's a Union. I wager half of them are criminals outright."

Senior Director Aaronson "Why don't you just call them commies and be done with it?"

Senior Director Tagg "Killing a man doesn't make them criminals?"

Senior Director Aaronson "Killing a mass murdering Neo-Nazi in self-defence? Not in my book."

Senior Director Tagg "You listen to me you miserable little-"

Chief Director Costa-Brown "Enough!"

note: there was an extended period of silence after this exclamation

Chief Director Costa-Brown "This will require a serious response. Or at least for us to be prepared for one. Wilkins?

Senior Director Wilkins "I'm advising that we keep her power's full implications under wraps. At least until we have her in custody. She hasn't gone after another school yet, but if the information gets out that is exactly what a huge number of parents will think is coming. Which is a blow the school system does not need."

Chief Director Costa-Brown "Agreed. Armstrong?"

Senior Director Armstrong "As scary as all this is. Containing her will be as easy as with any other striker. Keep her away from Hellhound and it's fine. The hard part will be capturing her in the first place."

Chief Director Costa-Brown "Well then, what's your response Director Piggot?"

Director Piggot "That's one place that I do have some good news. You see Agent Forstead, the agent Runt transformed into a small dog a month ago, she was friendly with Armsmaster. As much as anyone is."

personal note: investigate Agent Forstead

Senior Director Aaronson "So?"

Director Piggot "So, if you'll grant my request for reinforcements, I believe we have a way forward on this matter."

alert: anti-tracking suite triggered

:end transcript

disconnect: secure comms: - senior director authorisation level

anti-tracking suite purge...

..  
purge complete  
anti-tracking suite inactive

shell: shutdown procedure...

personal note: confirm scheduled lab session w/t Armsmaster re. Runt countermeasure

…  
shell offline


	34. Eighth Letter

**CARPE DIEM**

Parahuman transportation services throughout the East Coast. Near instant travel. Inter-city and intra-city transport available.

Photography and delivery services also available. Discretion upon request.

Prices on request, no discrimination regarding clients.

No long term employment.

No unmaskings.

No combat.

Request My Services at 1-428-555-7390

Signed: _Dominas Ostium, High Priestess of Janus_

* * *

The mood in Brockton Bay was...less than stellar.

Even with the Empire's near total destruction, it was hard to see cause for celebration through all the ash and rubble.

Sure, most of the city was fine. Maybe a little the worse for wear from the occasional looter, but mostly untouched. The parts that hadn't been that lucky though, they'd been very very unlucky.

Huffing each breath, Li-li (Li Ann to her mother, and nobody else) limped over a pile of shattered asphalt, walking stick in one hand and grocery bags in the other. Her stiff leg was, for once, not the source of her misery. In fact being a cripple was kind of paying off, since she was so used to checking her footing that even the ruined streets weren't enough to trip her.

No, her bad mood stemmed entirely from the people she saw, picking through the wreckage of their homes. Her own apartment was far from anywhere there'd been fighting but she had to travel through the ruins every time she went shopping, and her tiny fridge made that a daily chore.

All the while the red and green scarf she was wearing ensured a steady supply of stares from the newly homeless. Some hateful. Some grateful. She wasn't sure which kind of look was worse.

Oh yeah, the gang was making out well from it all. Lung had shown his strength, some idiots even saw him as a protector for fighting off that crazy priest. Now the Boyz were grabbing territory from the scraps of the Empire almost unopposed. Things were going great for the gang.

But would any of that find it's way to these poor fucks?

Hell. No.

"Damn." _huff_ "All." _huff_ "Capes!" She punctuated her steps, pausing to change her grip on the grocery bags in hopes of stopping the thin plastic from digging into her palm so much.

The bastards brought nothing but pain and horror. Not like she'd thought when she was a dumb little kid. When she watched the news about heroes and cheered for their victories and begged her mom to buy her shitty merchandise that they could never afford.

Li Ann had once dreamed of being a hero.

A twinge from her leg reminded her where that dream had ended.

Still, she'd kept on believing that there were good ones out there. Capes who thought of more than just fighting. Who didn't just crush those weaker than them, just because they could.

Well she'd been wrong. One look at the old cinema -or at least, the half of it that wasn't simply gone- as she dragged herself past it...that was enough to clear away the last of her illusions.

Hero, villain, it didn't matter. All parahumans wanted was to fight and fight and screw anyone who felt like living where they...

Silver twinkled on the ground. Light captured by a puddle, perfectly positioned for her ground-bound eyes to stumble across it. Her head snapped up to get a better look at the source and she found a flat panel of silver light floating high above the street.

It was a major enough street to be busy, even with the damage, but the only people who didn't stop and look up at the light were those smart enough to already be getting to cover. Li-li didn't bother trying to join them, sure that she was too slow to make it in time.

The light pulsed every so slightly and she fought not to close her eyes, she would see it coming and she wouldn't be the first to blink. Not a damn...way?

The rain that emerged from the silver light was not one of fire, or blood, or metal, or even some esoteric energy blasts. It was paper. A stack of fliers that scattered on the wind and tumbled down towards them. White with gold trim, fancy looking.

Li-li tried and failed to catch one, then stooped like a woman three or four times her age so she could read one off the ground. Not noticing the silver light shattering and fading above her.

"...the fuck?"

* * *

Hello there,

If you'd like to know how this card came into your possession, call me.

Signed: _Dominas Ostium_ 1-428-555-7390

* * *

The fliers had drawn a few interesting responses, but mostly they'd met the usual ignominious fates of paper with advertisements on it.

Far more successful were the cards that would eventually be found to have been printed at the same all night copy shop in Arizona.

Perhaps it was a sign that in marketing, less is more. Perhaps it reflected the higher quality of the cards compared to the fliers.

Most likely though, it was because the cards were not scattered out of portals high above the streets, but simply found.

On Director Piggot's desk. Beneath Lung's pillow. Nestled in the pages of Myriad's current reading material.

The greatest impact of all though, that came from one perched precariously atop an alarm clock. One that might have been crushed if the clock's owner didn't always wake up in time to carefully turn the alarm off.

Thomas Calvert stared at the little rectangle of card, his alarm ringing without acknowledgement.

Then he smiled.


	35. Alpha: 1

"Yeah, yeah, the Undersiders tell me that it'll fade completely in another quarter of an hour or so. Is everyone still behaving?" Daniel Hebert was absorbed in his phone call when Brian came back from getting cleaned up. As great as it had been to scrape dried blood and who knew what else off his skin, habit had pushed Brian to wash as quickly as possible. Not to mention that with the transformation faded he had only skin and a little hair to wash.

Which meant he'd returned to the main room of the loft before any of the girls who'd transformed that day. Finding Alec and Aisha over on the couches, and their guest sitting at their planning table.

Taylor's dad laughed into the borrowed cell phone he held, "Oh don't let those punks whine, I didn't yell that much." Brian did his best to ignore the adult in the room as he strode over to the couch, the big medical kit under his arm.

He had to hold back a smile at the sour look Aisha sent the big black case. Then the features wearing that expression reignited the fury smouldering in his gut. When he caught up to her, Othala was going to suffer for every bruise on Aisha's skin.

His little sister didn't flinch from his outstretched hand, and an old terror uncoiled in his gut. Even after seeing him fight, Aisha still wasn't scared of him.

Not that a lack of fear stopped her slapping his hands away when he started prodding at her swollen face. Everything he would need was in the kit, but where to start?

_'Course, it would be better if I could just convince her to let Tay-'_

-what was he doing by the couch?

"I hear you, the first round's on me. Now you go make sure those idiots take care of themselves. And Alexander...thank you. All of you." Danny -_'Should I call him Danny? Mr Hebert?'_\- hung up, looking almost startled by the beep. Then he looked around and, finding Brian standing just a few steps away, held out the burner phone with an awkward smile.

"Thanks for the lend. I, uh, don't carry a phone normally."

Words were in the air before Brian could stop to think if they were good ones, "It would only have been taken away by the skinheads anyway."

_'You idiot, that'll just remind him of what happened to him. '_

Danny couldn't seem to think of anything else to say, and after a few moments of standing by the couch Brian felt compelled to break the silence. Only, he couldn't think of anything to say that he didn't immediately think of a problem with.

Ask him about how he'd gotten the rampaging dockworkers under control?

_'No, that makes me look like I don't know what I'm doing.'_

Ask about Taylor before she triggered?

_'Yeah, he definitely wants to be reminded of how badly things have gone to shit for Taylor. Great idea.'_

Ask him how his injuries were feeling?

_'No, that'll just remind him of getting beaten up...maybe I should get him the medical kit? Where the hell did I leave it?'_

"Ah." Brian's throat was dry and his croaked breath drew Danny's eyes along with a rush of blood to his cheeks. A hurried cough cleared his throat to say, "We're pretty well stocked on bandages and stuff, if you want me to get you some?"

"Um. No, no I'll be fine until Taylor can help me."

"You know about that huh?" _'Of course he knows you moron.'_

"Yes..." After a moment Danny elaborated, "From her letters."

"That makes sense." Brian managed to reply.

After humming in agreement, Danny went silent again and Brian was entirely out of non-shitty ideas to get conversation going again. He plodded over to the table and sat down heavily, looking at the map that still sat on it for lack of anything else to do.

The time after a mission was bad enough normally. Exhaustion creeping up, adrenaline still hanging around. Brian never quite knew what to do with himself.

Now he had to deal with that with Taylor's dad in the room, looking like he'd had seven kinds of shit kicked out of him because unlike the Undersiders the poor man had no regeneration to fix him up. Silence stretched out between the two men as Brian tried to fumble through his thoughts for the right words.

Vaguely he wondered how it could be so hard to talk to the man. Talking to Taylor was easy. Had been easy ever since he got over his stupid hang-ups and started really getting to know her.

The newest member of the Undersiders had rapidly become the best friend he could recall having. She liked to think things through before she did them, except when her power sent her anger roaring ahead of her. She could be fierce in battle, but outside of it she was even quieter than he was. She definitely enjoyed his company, enough that she still trained with him regularly after more than a month of what Lisa and Alec both described as torture.

Hell, Taylor even had the same taste in books that he did. So much so that Brian sometimes mulled over faded memories and whether he'd seen her before in some bookstore or library.

So how the hell could it be so hard to think of something to say to her dad?

Surely he and Taylor had things in common, right? She'd told him that she got her love of books from her mother, so that was out, but Danny seemed quiet and withdrawn too. There was that same veiled intelligence in his eyes, so...

_'...am I really thinking of asking him to play a boardgame?'_

"Wow, you guys sure know how to party." Smirked a very insincere voice. Brian had never been so happy to hear Lisa's aggravating sense of humour in his life.

When he turned to face her, he found her flanked by Rachel and Taylor. All three of them looked freshly showered and wore loose casual clothes. Lisa had still found a moment to put on a brush of make-up though.

Before he could blurt anything out, Danny beat him to it. "Taylor! A-are you feeling better?"

The skinny man took a few hesitant steps towards his daughter, failing to hide his wince with each one. Brian didn't need to have spent weeks sparring with Taylor to read the worry and guilt in her face. Nor to predict what she was about to do.

Before she'd gotten halfway to her father, Brian was pushing at the slight weight that always lurked beneath his skin. He shaped it and pulled some of it back and there was a hollow orb of darkness encasing the father and daughter as they embraced again. Not that his attempt to give them some privacy would keep him from overhearing them, but he could at least look away and give them that much.

His power dampened and distorted the sound he heard through it, but in a way that somehow kept all the important parts intact. "Wha-!?" Danny began to say, interrupted easily by Taylor.

"That's Grue's power dad. He's just being nice, making sure that no one can see us."

Resolutely looking away, Brian heard a heaving sigh that was far too deep to come from Taylor. Then a thick voice choked out, "You gonna fix your old man up then?"

Taylor must have nodded, because there was a brief rustling of clothes and then the disquieting _schlorp_ of her using her powers in a quiet room and then...

Then Brian heard a grown man begin to cry his eyes out. Sobbing and choking and snorting. Bawling like an infant amid fragmented apologies and declarations of how much he loved Taylor. It was the kind of thing that would have probably made him smile if he read it, stirring warmth in his chest. Unfortunately, the reality was less heart warming and more uncomfortable. Very very uncomfortable.

_'This is definitely gonna make it easier to have a conversation with the man. Definitely.'_

Not that Brian had been any better during his first exposure to Taylor's power. In that dark room he'd curled into a little ball of fur and...well, he definitely wasn't going to be judging Danny's loss of composure. For all that his dad's voice was muttering disapproval in the back of his head.

Eventually the sobbing came to an abrupt end. It probably hadn't been more than a minute at most, but Brian felt like he'd just run a mental marathon.

"You...said that it was...extreme, the first time..."

Taylor sounded a little shellshocked, "I guess I didn't get it down in writing as well as I could have."

Danny rushed to reassure her, "You were very clear Taylor, I just...I guess I thought I'd be the exception. Sorry to...let you see me like that."

Brian waited, but that was the last thing either of them said for a long enough time that he dispelled his power just to break the tension. Idly he remembered the feeling he'd discovered less than an hour ago, of manipulating a darkness so heavy that it had real weight. That had felt less tense than the silence between father and daughter that he'd just been privy to.

Thankfully the quiet ended the instant he dropped the black fog. Taylor was being grabbed by Lisa and hugged one-armed when he turned around, while Danny scraped his chair back and made for the kitchen. He called over his shoulder, "I'll make some tea, then we can talk." Which seemed to be the beginning, middle, and end of any discussion on the matter.

"Stop frowning." Rachel grunted at him. When he looked at her, face neutral in case this was the precursor to one of her attempts to challenge his authority, she was making an attempt at smiling. It looked painful. "We just beat down Kaiser." She continued, "We got Taylor's dad back, nobody got hurt. So stop frowning."

Before he could dwell on her words, Danny spoke up from the kitchen and made himself the focus of attention. "What would you all like?" He asked, sounding weirdly upset by the question.

"Milk. Lots of sugar." Rachel replied.

"My tea bags are in the cupboard above you and to the left," Lisa said cheerfully, "Nothing but the tea bag in mine please Mr Hebert."

Since it was his turn, Brian pushed through the lingering awkwardness and said, "Milk, no sugar. Thanks Sir."

Of course since things couldn't just be nice and simple, a few moments later Danny spoke again, "Um, Taylor, I...I don't remember how you like yours."

There was pain in his voice, so much that Brian began to wonder just how long it would take to forget something like that. Taylor looked like she'd been punched in the gut, which stirred anger in his gut, but what could he even be angry with? Danny clearly didn't want to not know, getting angry at a good father would be worse than no help.

Then Lisa saved them all, for which Brian would curse her.

"She likes it black. Strong, with a little sugar." Her voice dripped with implications and her face -which Brian saw immediately because he'd almost set the air on fire as he whirled to glare at her- was weighed down with a grin so inhumanly smug that he'd have sworn she was transformed still.

Taylor squeaked. Brian very carefully did not look at her, though he could see her glowing face in the corner of his eye, and he was even more careful to keep his own face blank. Calm. Not in any way thinking of...that.

That was not something that he was in any way ready for. Especially not tonight, with an all out war still smouldering across the city and his sister having been-

The table rocked despite it's massive weight, shoved aside by his passage from sitting to standing. Somehow the floorboards didn't splinter as he stomped over to the couch. Then Brian reached down to his sister and pulled her away from Alec and into a hug.

His teammate had been tending to her wounds. Brian didn't care. He barely noticed the squawk that she made, or the flailing at his arms and torso.

_'She triggered.'_

It was all he could think of. His nightmare had come true. Aisha had been sitting on the couch and he hadn't been able to notice her, or remember her, or something like that. Which could only mean she had a power. Which meant that she hadn't just been beaten by some skinhead cape. She'd. She'd.

Pain took his breath away and steps thudded on floorboards then the metal of the stairs as Brian realised that she'd kicked him squarely in the nuts.

A worried hand was on his should almost immediately, rippling his flesh and banishing the pain. Not that he gave a damn about that when Aisha was-

"She's fine Brian. She just doesn't like you worrying about her is all." Lisa had stood up as well, though she was still over by the table. "She got beaten up but that's it. I promise that she'll be okay."

He stared at Lisa, desperate for her to be right, furious at the thought of her lying.

"I swear to you, she'll be okay."

Perhaps he trusted her. Perhaps he thought that Lisa wouldn't dare to lie about his sister. Either way Brian felt a little of the tension drain out of him.

A slender hand found his and he found a small smile to offer Taylor as she pulled him to his feet. Then he started towards the bedrooms and almost snarled at Alec when the shorter teen stood in his way.

"Didn't you hear Lisa? She doesn't want to worry you."

Brian opened his mouth-

"You look pretty fucking worried Brian."

-and closed it, unable to argue with Alec on that.

His friend, because the last month had made them that, somehow, clapped a hand on Brian's shoulder. "I'll talk to her dumbass. I've helped people through the time after they triggered before, and I didn't even like those lot."

Those pretty boy eyes didn't flinch at Brian's stare. So he nodded reluctantly and let Alec go.

Taylor squeezed his hand, then let go like it was red hot when her dad coughed and walked back over to the table. A tray of steaming cups occupied his hands, but his eyes were pointed their way. Even through the haze of guilt and pain, a part of Brian cringed at that.

Which might have made him feel more ashamed if he hadn't seen the slender balding man intimidate a whole crowd of living tanks barely an hour earlier.

"We've got shit to do, right?" Coming from Rachel it was barely a question. "Or can I go get some sleep."

Sleep sounded good. Sounded glorious in fact. But Brian had a job to do, and if there was one lesson his dad had taught that was worth learning, it was to take your responsibilities seriously. Even if the man who taught him that was a hypocritical old bastard, it was still true.

Driven by that responsibility, Brian shook his head. "We need to get this sorted out as soon as possible. If you'll take a seat Mr Hebert?"

This time he didn't just plonk himself down anywhere. Instead Brian took his time choosing a seat, both to find the right distance and amount of table to have between them, and to show the other man that he was willing to take his time. Not intimidated, but not impolite either.

When he did sit down, Brian thought he saw a flash of respect in Daniel Hebert's eyes before a mask of neutrality hid the truth of them. A mask that didn't falter even when Taylor sat down beside him and scooted her chair over so he could wrap an arm around her shoulder.

"I haven't had the opportunity to say this in person, so let me start by thanking all of you for taking care of my little girl. I can't ever hope to pay you back for that." Danny said, his voice sincere.

Lisa met his eye and Brian nodded fractionally, passing her the torch for this bit. She said, "Mr Hebert, Danny, your daughter definitely told you better than that in all those letters. She's taken care of us at least as much as we've done for her."

He wasn't deterred. "You gave her a place to stay."

"It was nothing." Rachel said the words, but not the platitude. Nobody could hear the way she said it and think it was anything but brutally honest.

Danny looked at her evenly -Brian didn't miss the way her eyes dropped to the table- and said quietly, "Not to me."

Then he smiled and looked back to Brian. "What I was trying to say was that I'm very very grateful, but that's just me. The Dockworkers are something else entirely. Now that we're finally in position to negotiate things properly, don't expect me to go easy on you."

Without any idea why, Brian Laborne gulped heavily.

* * *

An hour later, he was very sure of why he'd gulped. The man was a monster. A raging beast that had never raised its voice. A cunning spider that caught him in a web before he saw the first thread.

Their negotiation had opened with Danny listing every last service the Dockworkers had done for them in the last month. A list which seemed longer than Brian recalled but was definitely filled only with actual deeds. Even if Brian didn't trust his own memory, which he did, Lisa hadn't objected to any of them.

Then had come the pricing. Suddenly every agreed split that they'd arrived at with Alexander was being torn apart and with such clear logic that Brian could barely muster a word against it.

It wasn't even all in the Dockworkers favour. As often as Danny argued for a higher cut for them in one case, he argued the other way in another. As best as Brian could keep track, the man seemed to be less increasing the dockworkers' fee and more reshuffling the entire board for some unknown goal.

Then he'd revealed his goal in a short simple sentence. Which had chilled Brian to the bone with its implications.

Danny had asked to be able to hire the Undersiders' services, with everyone other than Rachel and Taylor serving as guards while they were paid to transform and boost his guys. A horde of brutes ready to do work that no-one else could. Plus the potential to hire them in turn for work that nobody would admit to doing.

He'd casually quoted numbers for what they could charge and what portion of that payment the Undersiders would get. Numbers which made most of their jobs seem, if not small, then certainly badly priced for the risk involved.

The web closed and Brian learned that the best kind of trap was one that prey didn't want to climb out of.

Suspicion rose, then fell with a single look to Taylor sitting beside her dad and looking immensely proud of him. Then was buried completely when Lisa began to speak as well, wonder in her voice as she started to consider the possibilities of what Danny was proposing.

Twice or three times the money that the boss had given them, before even considering their percentage of any big jobs. All without any real risk.

When Brian had asked about payment, raising the question of if they could really hide that much money vanishing into the pockets of villains, Danny had actually laughed. Saying, "With the number of cash businesses we're involved in? You know back when Marquis was in town, he ran every penny he made through some of our guys. Alexander was one of them."

Taylor had looked at him like he grew another head, but Danny just gave her a sheepish smile and claimed that he'd kept clear of it as much as he could. Brian really couldn't tell if he was lying or not. Not when a much more important question filled his thoughts.

"If that's the case." Brian said, "Could you hide part of the payments as money going to a dockworker?"

He'd gotten a raised eyebrow and an immediate nod. "Of course, but why would you want that? I'd have thought you all would want money to be less tied to your identity than that."

"Not me." Brian smiled, "I've got someone I need to take care of." His eyes found their way to staring down the hall to the bedrooms, all on their own. "I've been getting our old boss to set things up for me so I can claim a legitimate income, which was a real pain to do without giving him my ID. Seems like it would be easier to just ask someone I can trust with my real name."

Of all people, it was Lisa who stared at him after he said that. Something like hunger in her face.

Then she said, more nervously than he'd heard from her ever before. "You mean, you wouldn't mind cutting ties to our boss? Completely?"

Brian thought of the intelligence screw up that would have gotten them all killed if Taylor hadn't practically forced herself onto the team for that job. He thought of the look on Lisa's face every time the boss phoned, the one she thought she kept hidden behind a mask of mocking calm. Then he thought of the man sitting across a table from him, arm around his daughter's shoulders and a pleasant look on his face.

It wasn't hard to nod.

Lisa smiled weakly, then stronger and stronger until her grin almost split her face as she said, "Then there's a few things I can finally tell you about 'the boss'."

It was much harder to stay calm after that.


	36. Alpha: 2

_"He uses his power to torture us, or simulate it at least."_

As revelations go...it had been a doozy. Enough of one that Brian was still reeling from it a week later.

Not that he'd ever placed an enormous amount of trust in their mysterious benefactor. Nobody that stupid lasted long in their line of work. No, he'd been careful to ask for payments to be arranged in a manner whereby their boss would only have pseudonyms and aliases. Legitimate income as an anonymous independent contractor, programming qualifications that had come with blank spaces instead of names, nothing to trace back to his family.

_"We're just a tool to him, one that he'll happily coerce by force if rewards don't work out."_

Lisa had been very clear. She'd never given the boss any of his personal information...but it hadn't taken him long to see the flaw in her recollections. She had no memory of any interrogations the boss had performed, and it was only back in march that she'd even realised he was doing it. So for all they could know, the boss had gotten every detail already. Not just from her either.

Brian wasn't arrogant enough to think he'd remain unbroken under torture, even if he was sure he'd at least be able to keep from betraying anything that would hurt Aisha. He definitely wasn't going to bet her safety on the prospect that none of them had given anything away. Even if the others were proving a lot easier to deal with after, everything.

He snarled and grabbed one of the cushions, tossing it aside in his search for the remote. Alec's habit of leaving it everywhere but on the damn coffee table hadn't changed, but, the usual anger wouldn't come. The bastard was annoying and lazy and...

Aisha was practically living at the loft since the stuff with the Empire. She'd moved into one of the two remaining storage rooms -meaning the last was absolutely crammed full of junk- and even after a week she refused to open the door to him. Forcing a conversation wouldn't work either, not when she could vanish from his very memory at will. Which would have left him feeling helpless and furious and boiling with guilt.

Except for Alec. For some reason, including possibilities that Brian never ever wanted to think about, the two of them got along like they'd known each other all their lives. A friendship that had bothered him more and more before Aisha's trigger, and less and less since. Anyone with powers knew how tough it could be, and where Brian had failed, Alec had been helping his little sister through it.

Hard to hate him for misplacing a remote after that._ 'Not,'_ Brian thought as he shoved a hand down the back of the couch, _'That I'm not willing to give it a try.'_

Urgh, was that an old dog biscuit? It certainly felt soggy enough. Rachel was always leaving them in weird places.

Carefully pulling his hand back, Brian considered amputation before deciding hot water and soap would do. Which meant a brief foray into the kitchen. While he was there he poked around for a snack, something to fill stave off the hunger that seemed to gnaw at his insides almost constantly these days.

_'Looks like we're out of, well, everything.'_ Brian sighed and resigned himself to another grocery run. As soon as everyone else woke up he'd ask Taylor to join him. For the moment, he dried his hands and plodded back to the sofa, collapsing in a heap of hunger on something sharp edged and hard and..._'Damnit.'_

Sure enough he dug underneath himself and found the remote. Which he used to flick the tv on and turn it to the early morning news, one of the local stations turned down low enough not to wake up any of the others.

Just another recap of Chaste's attack on the Empire prisoner convoy. Blah blah, all Gesellschaft members freed, blah blah Velocity lost an arm, blah fucking blah. Amazing how boring the news could become when they repeated it enough.

What had he been thinking about? Oh yeah. The discovery that his biggest secret was probably compromised...only...

The important thing was, and remained, not that his identity might have been compromised to a sadistic villain with every reason to blackmail them. No, that wasn't what he'd been trying to wrap his head around for seven long days and seven restless nights.

The important thing was realising that he didn't give a damn.

At some point, some moment that he couldn't put his finger on, he'd stopped caring about the life of Brian Laborne. A life he'd been fighting and working for, for so very very long.

After they started hitting the Empire so frequently, it had become easier to crash at the loft then trudge back to his half-decorated apartment. The combination of Rachel and Taylor's powers was incredible but overusing it left them all exhausted.

With Aisha hanging out at the loft almost every day, there'd been no spectre of worry hanging over him. No fear dragging him to his mom's battered crack den of an apartment. No obligation to make him visit his dad. She was already close enough to keep an eye on, so the only reason to leave the loft had been errands and work.

Then the days had come when they weren't attacking the Empire, and for the first few he'd fled into the city and found ways to stay busy. Furnishing his apartment, even as there seemed to be less and less of a point. Filing paperwork for Aisha, even as it felt like more and more of a charade.

Until the day he'd been out and about and gotten a call from Rachel. She'd asked in her usual terse fashion for him to pick up some more building supplies. Once he realised she was looking to turn the rough clearing on the factory floor into a proper training space, Brian hadn't thought twice about spending the rest of the week's down time helping.

After that, it had felt natural to focus on training everyone while they were actually willing to go along with it. Even if Alec still refused whenever possible and Lisa whined so much that he was certain she was messing with him.

Before he knew it some line had been crossed. The line that he'd always kept between himself and his team, fonts of chaos that they all were. Only, when the dust of the Empire's fall had cleared and Lisa's revelation forced him to confront the feeling, Brian found himself without any reason to care.

He couldn't tell himself the old arguments for keeping his distance any more. Especially after seeing Daniel Hebert keep control over his own, much larger, crowd of raucous ruffians. All of them men and women that he was close to. Brian cared too much to stay away from his friends, and he couldn't pretend to be doing so to keep his hands on the reigns.

Nor could he pretend to have any other obligations pulling him away. Not any more.

Aisha definitely still needed him, but not as her responsible big brother with the apartment and the respectable job and the squeaky clean record. She needed Grue now, because with the power she'd gained there was no way he'd ever get her to live a normal life again. She needed someone to keep her in line, not to provide for her.

Coil might try to threaten him with his identity, but he'd probably just laugh.

Nobody would be able to catch Aisha to use her against him. His mom and dad could go to hell for all he cared. He didn't need the apartment any more. What was left?

His face being unknown? Rachel and Taylor had no problems going out in public. Was there anything else?

Brian slumped back into the sofa with a long sigh, letting the soothing tones of Stacy the reporter wash over him. The part of his mind that he could never quite get to turn off noted that she'd been promoted to anchor since the last time he saw her on TV, connecting the dots to conclude that it was probably because of her work covering Taylor's rampage and the Empire's attempt at blitzkrieg. A very different part of his mind noted that the low cut tops she favoured looked even better when she was sitting down.

"Well John," said the voice above the cleavage, "PRT sources have confirmed that Krieg was sighted in Europe just hours ago. It is believed that he joined with the Gesellschaft members returning to the old country. Together with Abwehr's disappearance, this leaves the Empire Eighty Eight without a single active cape. Some experts are predicting reinforcements from the Aryan Nation, while others believe the Georgia based supervillain group will celebrate the demise of their compe-"

A flex of his thumb flicked the channel over to some dead-eyed cooking programme. Since he already knew how to make eggs, and watching them fake early-morning cheer was kind of depressing, Brian kept surfing.

Bad cartoons.

More cartoons. Also bad.

Soap opera featuring a blatant rip-off of Legend.

Dull murder mystery.

Not so dull murder mystery...except he'd already seen that episode. Damn.

He hit buttons almost at random. Caring more about having something to focus on then on what he was watching. Unfortunately that meant that when a familiar shape hurdled the back of the couch and cratered the cushions beside him, Brian was staring at the payment screen for a pay per view channel.

"Wow bro. Right out in the open? You're pretty daring." Aisha was dishevelled and her hair was a mess and she was somehow still capable of mustering the energy to be annoying even as she cut herself off with a yawn. She kept going, "You're pretty gross too. Does your girlfriend know you like, mmmph mph mmpph."

Clamping a hand over her mouth worked wonders while he found a less disgusting channel. This time he pressed buttons intentionally, bringing up another news channel -this one showing something tedious about Fortress Construction's parent company launching a takeover of Medhall- and smugly ignoring Aisha's attempts to get free.

"Hey now Aisha, you know I'm not ticklish." She abandoned her attack on his ribs and switched tactics. "Licking my hand grossed me out when I was twelve sis." Her follow up attempt to gnaw at his fingers was easy to repulse, as was her going limp and trying to-

_'Hu-?'_

-unlike the first few times she'd tried that, Brian only tightened his grip in response to the mental hiccup.

"Uh uh, you know your power doesn't work on anyone touching you Aisha, now what do we say?"

He eased off his hand, not even entertaining the possibility that she'd actually apologise, then the news switched to a new story and both of them froze.

There was a werewolf on the screen. A giant werewolf.

Brian had heard Taylor and Rachel heading down the tunnel an hour ago, and then coming back up and heading back to bed. He even knew why they'd done so. After all, he'd been the one who negotiated the whole thing.

It was still a shock to see the results of their agreement had already made the news. Who the hell had been watching the boat graveyard so closely...

'Okay.' he conceded, 'Maybe it didn't have to be that close a watch.' In retrospect Brian felt a little stupid for not expecting a media reaction.

A hesitant question drew his attention back to the real world, where a television showed a reporter with an eighteen foot tall monster looming over him. The poor bastard was keeping it together pretty well despite a weird lack of PRT agents in the shot. Not that the growls and barks that were answering the reporters questions seemed like much reward for his bravery.

Fortunately for the reporter, a skinny man with thinning hair and fierce eyes wandered into the frame. "Maybe I could answer your questions instead, Mr?"

Credit where it was due, the reporter barely missed a beat. "Steve Wazowski, Channel Seven News, and you are?"

"Daniel Hebert, Spokesman for the Dockworkers' Union. Among other job titles, we all have to wear a lot of hats."

Aisha giggled, smirking at him when he looked askance at her. "Imagine if they were all wearing hard hats."

Brian snorted, but kept his chuckles under control and his eyes on the sudden interview.

"Mr Hebert, could you explain what exactly is going on here?" The reporter gestured outwards towards the boat graveyard as the cameraman panned the shot over at least two dozen more giant werewolves who were busily ripping and crushing and lifting.

Taylor's dad smiled shyly into the camera and said, "What does it look like to you Steve? We're clearing out the boat graveyard." He nodded to the shoreline where a few hulking figures were dipping in and out of the water.

"Um, well that wasn't really what I meant Mr Hebert." Poor Steve took a step back before asking, "Is this legal?"

"Of course it is. We have all our permits in order. In fact we've had the contracts to get all these old ships removed for years now." Danny continued, seeming blissfully unconcerned with the means by which the ships were being removed, even as a great screech of metal forced him to stop speaking until one of the Dock Wolves finished tearing a section of bulkhead loose. "We finally realised that it was much cheaper to hire all this than to get the equipment we thought we'd need." He shrugged. "Quicker too."

The reporter was gaping at him, struggling to find words on live television. Brian wasn't surprised when Aisha broke out into a fit of laughter, clutching her sides and bending over until her face was between her knees.

Then she yelped and stopped laughing, holding her side in a very different way. One that made Brian forget that the television even existed.

Delicately, without waiting for permission that she'd never give him, Brian reached out to probe at her side.

Her wince kindled the same old anger in his gut. The one that heated his stomach until bubbles of guilt boiled out of it. He crushed the anger down where it wouldn't reach his voice. Aisha did no such thing.

"I don't need you fussing over me Brian!" She snapped as she got to her feet, one hand still draped across her ribs.

Before she could use her new favourite method of avoiding him, Brian had her other wrist in his hand and her power was useless.

"No Aisha, what you need is to stop being so stubborn and let Taylor help you."

The betrayed look she fixed him with was almost enough to make Brian let go. Almost.

"We agreed that you'd stop trying to make us get along."

"No, you said we should agree to that. I never said yes."

"Oh so that's it then. You're just going to force me to do whatever you want? That doesn't remind you of anyone?"

Brian ignored the barb, sharp and well-aimed that it was. "When you're hurting yourself? Yes, yes I'll force you to spend thirty seconds with my friend who can and will help you."

"Oh? Your friend?" She rolled her eyes so hard that Brian almost expected them to make a full rotation. "Sure you're just friends. I totally believe that you and your wrestling buddy are just friends."

Embarrassment and indignation yelled in his ears, demanding he deny it. Something else pounded in his chest and gave him very different advice. Pride yanked on his arms and roared for her to stop talking to him like that. However Brian listened to none of them.

Instead, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then he took a few moments to think before opening his mouth to very calmly ask her a question.

"Dammit Aisha will you just talk to me?" He was almost whispering. "I don't know what the hell is going on with you about Taylor but has it occurred to you that you can just tell me?"

Then something amazing happened.

Aisha didn't yell at him.

She didn't struggle and claw at his hand.

She didn't find some sneaky distraction.

She didn't even whine at him until he let her go.

No, his annoying wonderful little brat of a sister didn't do any of the things he was expecting. Instead she took a deep breath of her own and stood very still. Then she looked up at him and opened her mouth to speak.

Which was the exact moment that a thunderous _scrreeetch_ of metal sounded directly above Brian's head.

Instinct had Aisha scooped up in his arms in an instant. It had him diving over the couch in the next.

Yet a line of fire still lanced down his shoulder blade, dampness sticking his shirt to his back as he rolled to his feet.

In his arms, Brian's little sister was stiff with terror. The teenage supervillain found he couldn't blame his latest recruit for that, but he could damn sure blame the man standing on the shattered remains of their coffee table.

Clad in royal blue power armour, holding a halberd with its blade already bloodied, Armsmaster stared back at the two Laborne siblings.

"You're under arrest."


	37. Alpha: 3

It was a great delivery. Dramatic and foreboding, Brian could really appreciate the effort that Armsmaster had put into it. Mostly because he spent no small amount of time practising his own intimidating persona.

It was a shame to see it go to waste.

Unfortunately for Armsmaster, his big fancy stabbing stick did absolutely nothing to stop the feeling that swept over Brian. Like slipping into a bath of cold oil, Aisha spread her power over them both.

For the next few minutes, they were ghosts.

Perfectly positioned to catch the heroes off guard when his team came charging out to deal with the noise.

From above there came another noise, a creak of the metal and a whoosh of air, something was strange about it. Brian took several quick steps back and a humanoid shadow dropped down in the space he'd just vacated. A heartbeat thudded in his chest then the shadow became a masked woman in a cloak. Shadow Stalker.

"What happened?" She hissed at Armsmaster. The older hero took a moment before responding.

"I reported two members in physical contact, but there's no one here."

"Armsy made a mistake?" Announced another figure as they dropped down into the loft, this one clad in a red and grey panelled bodysuit. Assault. He continued, "I don't believe that, someone messing with us?"

Armsmaster tapped something on his suit's shoulder, something brighter than his preferred design aesthetic, and Brian realised what was strange about the noise. There was none.

No street noise, no wind, no sound of distant waves even. He couldn't hear anything further away than a dozen feet...

_'Shit.'_

"Aisha." He whispered, though they'd already determined that it was only proximity that effected her power's effect on someone. "We need to get the others, now."

Another two heroes floated down through the hole, Dauntless in his fancy armour, and Aegis in his...well honestly Brian had always thought his costume was boring and generic, which was a recognisable trait all by itself. The older of them spoke to Armsmaster with the steady cadence of a report. "Militia is almost in position, Kid Win is with her. Reinforcements are five minutes out."

Brian was already moving for the corridor when Armsmaster said, "No. We can't wait, move in! And do not let her touch anyone!"

The heroes scattered, Dauntless and Armsmaster both going the same way Brian had.

"Bro, we need to wake everyone up!"

Not slowing down, Brian replied, "Even if they could hear us through Armsmaster's thing, your power means we can't, and without it they'd pile on us immediately." They reached his goal right as the heroes got to the first door along the corridor.

Brian's hands were occupied, so he kicked it open.

Neatly made bed. Well organised dresser and a nightstand cluttered with books. No Taylor though.

"She's not in her room. Dammit!" He ignored Aisha's panicked muttering, even forced himself not to pay attention to the heroes storming into Lisa's room. The first door along the hallway.

_'Aisha's power won't last much longer this close to them. Alec's room is unlikely, Rachel's or mine would make sense, but she might have gone to the storage room. Or even Aisha's room.'_

Down the hall the heroes were dragging Lisa out of her room in pyjamas and handcuffs. The whole thing was eerily silent, meaning they were far enough away that dropping Aisha and yelling might work. Or it might just get him captured and ruin their last hope.

They were heading the for the next room, he'd already gotten lucky that Taylor hadn't been in Lisa's. He had to pick the right one. No time to think about it.

A desperate thought crossed Brian's mind. With no better idea for checking five rooms at once, he cocked his head back and took a long sniff of the air.

They all knew each other's scents. Living and fighting together while in possession of super senses had guaranteed that. Not that he had any idea what most of things he smelt were, he just knew that Taylor smelt of something floral, paper, what he thought was ink, sweat, something tangy that varied constantly in strength, and a note that he couldn't even begin to put into words. Most of which were utterly beyond his current nose.

The floral scent though, that he could smell faintly even without the transformation. Coming from Rachel's room. Rachel who smelt of sweat, mud, dogs, 'scentless' soaps, and another bunch of things he couldn't identify.

The heroes kicked down the door to his room and Brian ran for Rachel's.

He found a bed covered in dogs, with the two girls nestled in amongst them and sleeping comfortably.

Without time to waste, he simply grabbed Taylor's wrist and heaved her out of the dogpile. Aisha was smart enough to slip out of his arms as he did so, keeping one hand entwined with his and grabbing Rachel with the other.

To her credit, Taylor was awake after barely any sleepy blinking and just one yawn. Any other time he might have dwelt on how cute it looked. At that particular time he skipped straight to leaning down and hissing, "Transform us, right now!"

The dogs were awake, yelping and howling as they tried to find Rachel. She tore her hand away from Aisha and set about calming them down but the damage was already done. Very heavy boots were thudding rapidly against the corridor floor. They had seconds to spare.

Brian felt the shift ripple through him, and just like that, he wasn't worried any more. The heroes had invaded his home, his family's home, and that earned them a beating.

Except they'd already taken Lisa, Alec was still in his bed, and they had seconds at best.

His chest rumbled with a growl, but Brian dragged his team against the wall. Rachel with her arms full of dogs, Taylor still trying to reach out to each of them in turn.

Armsmaster reached the door and looked through it, tracking his gaze across the room until he was looking right at them. Then he stopped.

_'He can't see us.'_

Slowly, the hero stepped inside the room.

_'He can't see us.'_

His halberd began to rise.

_'Can he?'_

"We found the other one." Assault popped up behind Armsmaster with a beaming grin. He tugged on Armsmaster's shoulder and the two of them left the room.

Their cue to get out into the lounge room._ 'Then we can surprise them, grab the others, and get the hell out of here.'_ Brian led the way, the others trailing behind him in a chain of shared imperceptibility.

Whatever gadget had been keeping things quiet, Armsmaster must have turned it off when he couldn't remember any other Undersiders. They could all hear Alec yelling, demanding to see the warrant and be read his rights. Dauntless actually seemed to be taking him seriously, not that meeting his demands was quieting him down.

They hesitated before entering the corridor. Only after he'd checked four times was Brian ready to lead them into the narrow space. All too aware that even brushing someo-

_'Fuck!'_

A wall of muscle and red spandex appeared so close to Brian's face that he could feel the heat coming off of Aegis. Panic shot through him for an awful instant, then Taylor's grip tightened on his wrist and yanked him back. He stumbled into her slender frame and tried to get his breathing back under control, all while Aegis droned on about evidence procedure.

Eventually the hero got back to pawing through their stuff and they made it past him, through to the lounge. There Alec and Lisa were sitting at the table, hands cuffed behind their backs and various bits of their gear laid out on the table before them. Alec was yelling about a typo while Dauntless held up a sheet of paper and asked where it was, Alec's answer kept changing. On the other hand, Lisa was silent, just sitting and staring into the corner by the balcony where Armsmaster was standing.

Brian could just barely make out snatches of what he was saying, "...talking about...there's...no...Militia are you..." His posture was concerning though. Even through the power armour Brian could see the tension, and he was looking around way more than he should be in a building that had no unsecured villains in it.

Then Lisa went ramrod straight and screamed, "Militia can-!"

_bang_

The gunshot drowned out Lisa's voice, and was followed by the thump of Rachel's body hitting the floor.

Brian whirled to look at her and white hot rage filled him, then he heard her groan and saw the little red bean bag and got ever so slightly less angry.

Oil and silence had boiled off his skin, the heroes were shouting and rushing towards them. Brian roared his challenge and put an end to their ability to see. Darkness filled the room in seconds, then poured out into the street. No more sniping.

The heroes were lost in the dark, all but Armsmaster who hardly faltered in his charge. Dispelling the darkness around his friends, Brian rushed into his darkness in a charge of his own. Straight for the bastard.

Who smoothly slid to one knee and thrust his halberd for Brian's chest, the tip folding out to reveal a needle. Brian feinted right, then actually went right, barely dancing to the side of the needle and promptly getting his legs swept out from under him, only to dig his claws into Armsmaster's side and pull him to the floor as well. The halberd clattering away.

They grappled, hold and counter hold in a way that Brian had never done in a real fight before. In the first exchange Brian knew he was out matched, only keeping up due to the physical enhancements of the transformation. Then suddenly that wasn't enough and Armsmaster was sliding behind him, arm clamped around his neck. Air became something precious and Brian tried to think where he'd gone wrong as his vision began to darken.

Breath rushed back into him all at once, Armsmaster's bulk no longer behind him, his darkness fading away. Frantic, he looked around and found Armsmaster pinned beneath a werewolf wearing Taylor's clothes. Dauntless turned and pointed his spear, the whole length crackling with lightning, then he went down in a fit of spasms as Alec drove his taser into the hero's neck. Beside him Lisa calmly pulled out her gun and emptied it into Aegis.

Both Alec and Lisa had their cuffs still dangling from one wrist. Apparently the heroes hadn't expected them to be quite do good at lockpicking.

Assault was trapped on the other side of the darkness still lingering in the corridor, but they still needed to get clear before finding out what 'reinforcements' meant. Brian went to help Taylor with Armsmaster when the tinker activated something and she was hurled away from him by a wall of force.

Darting to the side, Brian snatched her out of the air with a grunt at the impact. Keeping his eyes on Armsmaster.

Behind the hero there was a flicker of darkness, then Taylor's hand shot up and a crossbow bolt appeared clenched in her fist. One of the fancy tranquilliser bolts that could only mean.

"You!" Snarled Taylor, already leaping forward before Brian could stop her. Not that she needed the help, judging by the way she snatched another bolt out of the air.

Armsmaster went to intercept her, so Brian kicked him in the gut to remind him who he was fighting. Taylor running past unhindered and attempting to tackle Stalker to the ground, only to slide through the shadow she became. Then Armsmaster was coming at him again and Brian couldn't focus on any fight but his own.

This time the tinker had his halberd, stabbing and slashing until it seemed less like a blade and more of a net of steel woven in the air between them.

But Brian had the measure of the other man after their first exchange. He had felt the weight of training in the hero's fighting style, and understood which of them was better. So instead of fighting him, Brian simply kept retreating.

Whatever was in his way, Brian hopped or rolled under. However Armsmaster attacked, he was never quite fast enough to strike more than glancing blows. With the close confines and other heroes around, there'd be no big tinker toys coming out to play, so Brian just kept falling back around and around the loft, waiting for Rachel to get her breath back inside of her.

Off to the side Lisa was keeping up a steady patter of gunfire into Aegis, enough to force him to adapt, again and again. Meanwhile Alec was creeping over towards Taylor's fight.

Taylor's fight looked as frustrating as the first one she'd described with Shadow Stalker. A continuous stream of blows that simply flowed through the supposed hero. All while Armsmaster kept him too busy to help her with a blast of darkness, especially when it might easily blind her at the wrong moment if he didn't aim correctly.

Ducking a razor sharp blade and scrambling back from the follow up thrust, Brian really didn't have time to aim.

Not until a familiar younger sister of his appeared with her arms around Armsmaster's throat and a very large combat knife pressed to the underside of his exposed chin.

The tinker went very, very still.

At the same time, Stalker phased through yet another of Taylor's claw swipes, only for Alec to jam his own taser into the shadow she had become.

Shadow Stalker materialised with a ragged scream and Alec grinned at Lisa. He opened his mouth to say something, then Taylor tackled Stalker over the railing.

Brian couldn't help it, him glanced away for a split second. Aisha's yelp rammed his attention back to Armsmaster, too late.

His sister was staggering back and clutching her wrist, but she looked well enough that Brian kept his eyes on the hero that sprinted for the edge of the loft and hurdled it like he was jumping over the back of a couch.

Brian didn't hesitate either, diving right over the railing.

On the way down, he could already see Taylor tumbling away from Stalker's limp body and a very pissed off Armsmaster. The downed cape was breathing, but one of her legs looked badly broken and she was looking around like she had a concussion.

The ground rose up to meet him, a roll bringing him to his feet, but it was already over.

Armsmaster had lashed out with a thrust that became a slash when Taylor slid to the side, catching her across the ribs in a spray of blood. A shallow wound, already reduced to a pink scar when he spun away from her. A move Brian would have backed away from, but which Taylor didn't quite see through.

Taylor darted in to catch Armsmaster in retreat, and never saw the butt of his halberd sweeping up into the back of her neck. She tumbled across the factor floor and slammed into one of the machines, holding her neck and coughing with the choked gags of someone with the breath knocked out of them.

The hero took a step towards her, and stopped when Brian planted himself between them. His friends were clattering down the stairs, Aegis apparently dealt with for now. Brian kept his eyes only on Armsmaster this time.

Even when Taylor started screaming behind him.

Brian held himself perfectly still. The crackle of electricity, of a seriously overcharged taser, it probably meant it wasn't lethal.

Only, it wasn't stopping. Taylor kept crying out until finally Armsmaster spoke up.

"You need to turn back."

"What?" Brian snapped, eyes darting around in search of an opening, any opening, so he could beat the hero into a fucking coma.

"She needs to turn back to human, or the shocks won't stop."

The usual sound of transformation came, and the screaming stopped.

The hero, stood before them without fear. His weapon pointed at Brian, occasionally twitching slightly towards the others.

Brian barely held himself back from charging again. Even knowing he had no hope of winning without Rachel back up and helping. The bastard had come into their home, villainous base of operations that it was, and attacked them. What the hell had they done that deserved this?!

"You are all under arrest. This building has been confirmed as your base of operations and is surrounded by heroes of Brockton Bay and reinforcements from several other cities. If you come quietly then-"

_thwap_

A giant mutant dog weighing several tons knocked Armsmaster head over heels with a casual swipe of its paw. Which was when Brian recognised it as Angelica.

He spun and swept Taylor into his arms, seeing her without any kind of transformation for what felt like the first time ever. No tail or ears. Without them she looked smaller, more fragile. More in need of protection. Especially with the thick metal collar that was clamped around her narrow throat, three blinking blue lights the only markings on the smooth steel.

Atop Brutus, Rachel shouted down at them, "Get on!"

He didn't need to be told twice. Aisha scrambled up ahead of him with a little of his help, then turned to help him get Taylor's trembling body draped over the dog's back. Alec and Lisa simply joined Rachel on Brutus. Meanwhile Judas followed Rachel's whistle and point command, ramming into a heavy old machine and knocking it tumbling across the floor.

Their tunnel entrance was revealed, and it hit Brian with sudden clarity that this would probably be the last time they saw the loft. He wanted to go back up and look around. He wanted to go get some of his things, some of the precious items all of them had kept in their rooms. He wanted to say goodbye.

But the heroes would be on them in seconds.

"Let's go!"


	38. Alpha: 4

"I think I can get to the tracker, but the rest of it..." Lisa shook her head, leaning back and letting Taylor resettle the collar to a more comfortable position.

None of them replied. There was no point, not when they were all thinking the same thing. Especially not when any stray noise could be what gave them away.

Their transformations had worn off in the first few hours, when the tunnels still echoed with boots and shouts and the crackle of radios. Forced to dismount Rachel's dogs when the tunnels narrowed, they had only kept ahead of pursuit thanks to the enhancements.

Then they began to wear off, and Taylor's attempt to top them up brought the latest nasty surprise.

Every time she tried to transform herself, the collar would shock her and break her concentration, they'd figured that part out early. It hadn't been a big deal, Brian had simply carried her -shrouded by his power- until they had time to remove the collar. Or so he'd planned.

Unfortunately it turned out that the same shock broke her concentration whenever she tried to transform anyone else as well.

"It's shitty, looks like he slapped it on after finishing the rest. Which is the only reason...I can..." With a grunt and a pop, Lisa ripped something out of the collar. A dark grey disc of plastic, about the size of a penny.

Brian snatched it out of her hand and tossed it to the ground. A judiciously applied boot removed one of their worries. A slender body leaning against him reminded Brian of all the other ones they had to deal with.

That he had to deal with.

"Okay. Let's stop and take stock." He held up a hand for order, still a little surprised at the obedience he got these days.

Lisa scratched her head and sighed, "Well first off, the loft is burned. Unless we raid their evidence lock up in the future, we should all just accept that our stuff is now PRT property." All of them slumped at that. They'd all had precious possessions that they'd kept in the loft, either because they had no where else, or because they thought...

"Why weren't we safe?" Brian asked. Though he already knew the answer before Lisa replied.

"The boss. Coil. He must have given our location to the PRT."

Alec chimed in, "They'd trust it from a known villain?"

"No," Lisa explained, "But he's smart enough to know that. He'll have given it to someone that the PRT would trust at their word, an agent or even a hero maybe."

"Why?" Rachel spat.

"Because we refused to follow his orders." Brian answered. It wasn't hard to figure out. They'd been keeping their distance for over a month, and in the last week he'd seen Lisa decline a whole lot of phone calls. Apparently sadistic supervillain masterminds didn't deal with break-ups very well. More importantly, "What now? Any ideas?"

Aisha jumped in with, "We go to those Dockworker guys, they'd hide us, right?"

He was already shaking his head, but Taylor's response was much more vehement.

"No!" She snapped, the first time he'd heard her speak since she admitted she couldn't fight through the collar's shocks. She sounded drained, but not yet defeated. Not that he'd expected any less. "The heroes will expect that, and..." She looked around at them, pleading for understanding with her eyes. "...my dad and the others, they could already be in a lot of trouble. We can't...we just can't..."

Aisha opened her mouth, maybe to agree, maybe not to, either way Brian cut her off. "She's right. We owe them that much, and right now we'd only be bringing them trouble."

"We need to get the collar off Taylor." Rachel stated, the buff girl keeping watch on the way they'd come.

"Agreed, as long as I've got this thing on I'm no good to anyone." Taylor's voice trailed off into dejection and Brian was squeezing her shoulder before he could think better of it.

_'We've already touched plenty in sparring anyway. That's all this is.'_

"You're plenty good." He attempted to be comforting, with the sneaking suspicion he was failing miserably. "But you're right that we need to get it off. Which means a tinker."

Lisa sounded like she was pulling her own teeth as she said, "We could...go see Faultline. Her power would probably do it."

A low whistle came from Alec, but all of them were staring at the blonde. Her mutual rivalry with the mercenary was well known, it must have taken a lot out of her to make the suggestion. Brian was almost sad to shoot it down.

"Firstly, Faultline is an arrogant patronising asshole. Secondly, she doesn't like the rest of us much more than she likes you. Thirdly, we just got our identities blown, meaning no bank accounts in our names, and I doubt anyone is carrying much cash. We couldn't hire her even if we wanted to and she was likely to take us on."

His words won him a relieved look from Lisa. A slightly guilty look, but mostly just relieved. She continued for him, "Not to mention, there's definitely some kind of anti-tamper system on this thing. Damaging it will definitely set it off. I thought her power might bypass that, but I really can't say for sure."

"So what then?" Rachel asked.

Taylor was the one who replied. "We find a tinker. Obviously Kid Win and Armsmaster are out."

"Not necessarily." Said Alec. "Maybe it's just me, but those guys just took our home. I'm not averse to a little extortion right now. Or kidnapping."

Brian gave him a hard look, despite how much his blood howled to agree. He fought the anger down and said, "We can't out escalate the fucking heroes, not without Taylor at least. Even with her I don't know if we'd survive that."

Unsure if she'd be able to agree with him, what with the collar around her neck, Brian looked over to Taylor. His face creased with the hint of a smile when he saw her nodding, despite that she had to be at least as angry as the rest of them.

For all that Brian wanted to howl with pain and rage at the loss of his home, his life, even his things, he remembered. For Taylor, it wasn't the first time this had happened.

With the way Aisha, Alec and Rachel were all definitely not nodding, he was glad to have another voice of reason on the team.

_'To think, at first I thought she was going to be another Rachel.'_

Getting them back on topic, Brian counted on his fingers as he said, "Leet, Squealer, that Empire kid, and uh, didn't you say the ABB had a new tinker?" He directed the last towards Lisa.

"Yeah, but she's definitely crazy. I wouldn't trust her anywhere near Taylor's neck."

Taylor put a hand up, attempting a smile. "I'm not sure I trust any of the others near my neck either. Leet's...Leet. Squealer's a drug addict. As for the Empire kid..."

There was no need to say it. It was hard to imagine that any member of the Empire would have their best interests at heart.

"That just leaves hiring an out of towner. Maybe we head for Boston?" Brian summarised and put the idea to the group. He got a round of half-hearted nods in return. Aisha in particular looked so rebellious that he had a sudden terrible image of her sneaking off to attack the heroes by herself.

"I'm not saying that we run." He didn't bother to keep the fury out of his voice, letting it chill his tone and deepen his voice. "Once we're back in shape, we come at them and we show them what it means to fuck with us. Right now though, we need to get to the surface, access our back-up accounts, and find a way to sneak out of the city."

This time the nods were more enthusiastic, even from Aisha.

"Okay, then we-"

His words and thoughts hit a brick wall. A murmur had echoed down the tunnel that they'd come from, a distinctly unknown voice.

It was shortly joined by another.

The Undersiders tensed for battle, then Aisha grabbed his hand and Alec's and they remembered that they didn't need to fight at all.

_'Assuming those assholes haven't already figured out a counter for that too...they can't have already figured that out? Surely?'_

Hoping that the world wasn't going to play another shitty joke on him, Brian groped in the near dark for Taylor's hand and glanced around to check that the others were all holding onto one another. Then he nodded to Lisa and she killed their light.

Alone in the dark, they all tried to quiet their breathing. It was a little comforting to know that he wasn't the only one who still followed the habit even knowing it was pointless. Not that anything could be all that comforting when pursuit was this close.

The distant murmurs became low voices holding some kind of conversation. Already Brian missed the enhancements to his senses. It had to be downright awful for Lisa. She overused that aspect of the transformation constantly. Hell Brian couldn't remember the last time he'd gone this long without being transformed. It had to be at least two weeks ago. More?

Distant voices became close voices, and the tunnel began to fill with dim light reflecting around a bend. These tunnels weren't part of the routes they normally used. In fact Brian wasn't sure they even counted as that kind of tunnel, since he was pretty sure they were disused storm drains and dated to a more recent time than the prohibition days. Then again, those like Lacey proved that the smuggling was alive and well in the Bay, so maybe it still counted.

Slow breathes were held completely as the voices came right up to the near corner. Then they turned and a collective sigh of relief was released.

It was a group of homeless people.

A couple of trundling shopping carts took the lead, pushed by figures wearing enough different jackets that they looked well built. Brian's eyes darted to their exposed wrists and necks though, saw the signs of malnutrition there. He doubted any of them were close to a healthy weight.

Further back were what looked like the more recently homeless. At the sight of them he felt more than heard a gasp from Lisa. Rachel just growled at her own memories, and Brian was tactful enough not to draw attention to either.

Some of them looked almost healthy. Only their dirty clothes and greasy hair gave them away. The clothes were still well maintained and their bodies still had plenty of meat on their bones. Most of them were Asian looking, making it easy to figure out what had driven them to this, but amongst the pool of black hair he could see various shades of brown and blonde, even a muddy platinum blonde near the back.

"We could blend in with them." Aisha's voice made them all jump. For a moment Brian feared he'd lose his grip on her, but he managed to hold on despite himself and none of the homeless group screamed and pointed to the sudden appearance of fugitives. Not that this lot were likely to know anything about that.

Once they'd all remembered that they could talk freely without breaking their stealth, conversation began again. Albeit in unnecessarily hushed voices that had Aisha smiling at them all, ever so slightly.

"It might work." Said Lisa. "Trust me, nobody pays attention to the homeless."

Rachel agreed, "We mess up our clothes, roll in the muck."

Not the worst plan to get out of the city. It really wasn't...but Brian could feel the tension in Taylor's hand, and he had to admit he was feeling it too. Of course she wouldn't say it, not when she was surely blaming herself for bringing all this down on their heads. So it fell to him.

"No." He got a chorus of pointed looks at his denial, but he didn't let his voice falter. "We could get them killed. No."

There were sins he was willing to take on his shoulders, getting innocent people killed wasn't among them.

So they all stayed quiet and let the group past.

When the light was just a flicker in the distance, they released one another with a chorus of stretches and groans that Brian had to rush to shush, and set off down the tunnel. When they came to the first fork in it, they went the way the homeless had not.

From then on they followed Lisa's directions. Even though she admitted to being unsure of them, none of them had any better ideas than to take the turns as she called them.

It went on for hours, until Brian felt utterly, hopelessly, lost.

The tunnels changed textures and materials and ages, but it all blended together. Noises echoed and overlapped and Brian swore he heard someone following them several times, only to dismiss it moments later as their own footsteps echoing around behind them.

Finally, with Taylor leaning heavily against him, they came to a ladder that Lisa nodded to and said. "I'm certain of it. There's no PRT or hero presence anywhere around here. We can surface."

Missing daylight as much as he did, Brian didn't argue the point. He did however take point, calling a wave of darkness around him as he climbed the ladder and pumping it out the moment he lifted the manhole cover. The sliver of light that would have blinded his darkness adapted eyes was filtered through his power and did nothing. Meanwhile he filled the ruined warehouse beyond with his darkness.

Only then did he climb up and look around. Other than a strange sense of deja vu, the result of too much time spent in these old places, it seemed safe enough.

"Come on up." He called down the all clear. Banishing the dark immediately around the manhole. He helped each of them up in turn, careful to show everyone the same firm and supportive grip.

When they were all topside, he dismissed the darkness completely. The sun was already going down, so they didn't waste any time before walking towards the hole in the wall where there was probably once a door.

"Okay then, we need to stay hidden as we move, but this looks like the Docks so that shouldn't be too-"

Lisa tensed in the corner of his eye, but Brian could already feel it. What he was feeling, he didn't know. A scent? A sound? A glint of light where there should be nothing reflective?

Whatever it was had him roaring, "Back to the tunnel!" Even as he turned to sprint for the manhole himself.

Yet again, it was too little, too late.

Before he'd even finished turning, there was a man in a costume standing between them and the manhole.

He wore a red waistcoat beneath a black jacket and a similarly coloured top hat. His mask was white, styled as a skull and reminiscent of some legend that Brian couldn't quite remember.

Whether he was distracted by the rising horror in his gut, or the massive tumour on the cape's neck, it was hard to say.

"Hello and welcome." Rasped the cape, holding up a slender cane and bowing to them. "I am so very glad you came to this place. Ma cherie judged it likely enough to send one of us here, but I am so glad to have served a purpose in-"

_bang_

Lisa's pistol rang out and a spray of blood erupted from the side of his neck, the side opposite the tumour. Even as he tumbled to the ground she was yelling, "It's not really sentient, just an echo of personali- oh fuck it's not dead!"

She fired again, blowing apart the top hat in a chunky spray of red, but she wasn't quick enough.

The corpse slumped to the ground, and a nearly identical figure poked it with his own cane. This man had no tumours -he looked perfectly healthy in fact- and was arm in arm with a pretty woman in a costume that was basically just a gymnastics leotard with a few pouch-laden belts slung across her hips. From what Brian could see it didn't even have a back.

_'So definitely a brute then. Or just very stupid'_

Arrayed to either side of them, and casually spreading out as he watched, were another six capes. One woman, lithe of build, wearing a full body costume of black with stylised suns emblazoned across it in a rainbow of colours. Two men, broad shouldered, geometric patterns stitched in black across their red armoured tops and pants. Though one of them had a hunchback and limped as he sidled towards a stack of crates.

The last three were...monsters? There was no other word for them: A weird floating octopus thing; A misshapen four armed gorilla; And a man-sized turtle with what looked like a cannon poking out of it's shell.

Standing between them, the woman and the man stepped forward. Then the woman patted the man's hand and he -reluctantly- let her go. She spoke clearly, but with an edge that Brian recognised. The introvert forcing themselves to speak publicly.

"Greetings. My name is Myriad, leader of the Travellers. I'm afraid we've been hired to bring you in."

"To the authorities?" Lisa asked, a sick smile stretched across her face.

"Oh no. No we've been hired by your old employer. I'm afraid Coil would like a word with all of you."


	39. Alpha: 5

Seeing no reason to listen past that, Brian promptly flooded the entire warehouse with darkness.

Then he banished the area around his team and pointed. Yelling to Lisa, "Shoot there!"

She didn't hesitate. Her gun barked again and again as she fired blindly into fog of his power. Or perhaps not so blindly, since she took the hunchbacked man in the head with her second shot.

His next step was to grab Aisha and get them all clear while the mercs were still fumbling in the dark. It was a good plan, so Brian was almost expecting it to get shot to hell somehow. Meaning he wasn't surprised when a great blast of wind nearly took him off his feet, dispersing his darkness completely.

The floating octopus looked a little deflated, its tentacles gaping from the gales they'd just held.

_'How does everyone have a way to do that?!'_

Brian was no rookie, so he barely hesitated to switch to his back-up plan. "Attack!"

Admittedly, it wasn't nearly as good a plan as his first one, whatever that had been. The turtle began blasting something orange and gooey at Rachel and her dogs, the remaining muscled guy reached out and promptly fell on his face, and then Brian was charging for their leader and didn't have any more time to focus on his team's fights.

He did catch a glimpse of Lisa running at the girl with the sun costume though. Trust Lisa to pick out the threat she could bring down by herself. Hopefully she got it right.

Hurling himself at the skimpy brute and her suited partner, Brian shut out everything else and readied himself to react to their counter.

Unfortunately that counter took the form of the guy tightening his grip and looking over at the deformed gorilla thing. Both capes vanished while Brian was still mid charge, and he was left to stumble to a halt where they'd just been. He saw them standing by the gorilla and was about to renew his charge -if only to keep the pressure on them- when there was a flash of orange in the corner of his eye.

Well honed instincts had him in the air before the lump of goo hit, but not quite soon enough. His boot was caught along one edge and stopped like it was glued in place. All of his weight was yanked to a halt by his new anchor, almost tearing his hip out of its joint in the process.

Brian hit the ground hard. Immediately he grabbed his boot and set to untying it, unwilling to waste time working it loose in the middle of a fight.

Finding his targets was easy, neither of them had moved from their spot beside the gorilla. Meanwhile Rachel was still atop her dogs, all three of them leaping back and forth to try and avoid a hail of fire from the cannon turtle.

Lisa was exchanging cautious punches with the sun girl, both of them fighting with more skill than their appearances would suggest._ 'Not much of a cat fight.'_ He couldn't help but think, though he was quick to shake off the stupid thought, fearing what the enemy leader would do while he was immobilised.

A dark blur dashed past him and Brian realised too late that there was someone else whose actions he should be even more afraid of. Taylor had no use of her power, was barely trained to fight, and she was charging a trio of mercenary capes with a bestial scream.

His fingers wouldn't move fast enough.

The suited guy turned to face her charge, taking a stance and watching her hurtle closer.

A lace caught in an eyelet, a stupid tight knot that he'd never bothered to untangle.

Suit guy tipped his hat and swung his cane into a ready position. Then he smacked himself in the face with his cane and Taylor hit him like a skinny pile of bricks. Brian finally noticed his sister standing over the twitching form of the bulky guy, right as Taylor drove her taser into suit guy for the fourth time.

Then Myriad stepped forward and backhanded her. The blow hit her chest and sent her soaring through the air a good ten feet. Taylor slammed into a pile of junk and vanished beneath it.

Rachel yelled, Alec shouted, Brian roared.

The lace tore in his hands, his boot ripping as he yanked his foot free and leapt into a sprint.

Ahead of him one of Rachel's dogs -_'Brutus'_\- had the same idea, rushing the skimpily dressed girl. It easily reached her before Brian could only for the mutant gorilla thing to step between them and catch Brutus with all four of its arms. Brian didn't care and he didn't slow down.

Off to the side Rachel had leapt from Angelica's back to scramble atop the cannon turtle. A corner of Brian's mind had noticed, but the rest had only one thought available.

His opposite didn't seem impressed by his charge. She rose from fussing over suit guy and swung another casual backhand towards him.

Brian caught it in a furry hand, straining from the force but catching it nonetheless, then swung his other hand for her gut.

His claws cut deep into her stomach and the Travellers' leader hissed in pain.

The wounds closed and she grabbed him by the shirt with a lot more strength than she'd put into the backhand. An instant later he was airborne.

The problem was, he wasn't like Taylor.

Taylor was talented and hard working, but she hadn't spent years training to fight. Hadn't spat blood on the mat after hours of getting thrown over and over again. Hadn't been beaten black and blue by a man that towered above her like an unassailable mountain.

Brian had. So he flipped in mid-air almost without thinking about it, getting his feet beneath himself and rolling easily when he hit the ground. He came to a stop with his foot to the floor and kicked off in the next instant, sprinting for Myriad before she realised he was still in the fight.

Again he slashed her across the stomach, renewing cuts that had already faded to pinkish scars. This time she yelped and lashed out with a kick. Brian stepped inside it and hit her with a quick combination, altering the rote motion with open hands instead of closed.

Myriad staggered back with red lines criss-crossing her face and rage twisting her features even as the wounds began to close.

She punched and he flowed into a cross counter. She spun in a kick and he ducked under it to slash her ankle. She feinted a haymaker and he dodged the real blow, cutting her stomach again. The rest of their teams fought on around them, but he couldn't see that any more.

Then Myriad spun into a backhand again and he didn't see her either.

Taylor's limp body soared in his mind's eye, she screamed and it was Armsmaster whose fist he dodged. Whose gut he sliced open yet again. His friend's scream distorted into another in his thoughts, another failure flashed in his eyes, and Brian stepped forward to drive his fist into his mother's gut.

She choked and spat, then recovered just as quickly. There was no more holding back. The blows that whistled past his head would have shattered him if he let them hit. So he didn't let them. Brian wove through her attacks effortlessly. He could see the pattern she preferred, all he had to do was walk the path she was showing him.

A voice lectured in his memory, and Brian roared just to drown it out. Smothering the memory in rage didn't stop his father from appearing, taking his mother's place and redoubling the assault against him. The pattern faltered, failed, and twisted into something new, something his father had never taught him to break down.

'So what.' Brian's voice snarled in his head. He ducked a punch, then dove over a kick and rolled to his feet with a rising cut to his father's back. Sending the old bastard stumbling forward, shock written across his face.

Of course the old man was surprised. He'd never expected his son to match him, let alone surpass him. All his talk about learning had been bullshit, just an excuse to have a punching bag that wouldn't complain. Couldn't complain.

Brian roared his victory as he slashed and slashed and slashed. Rending his foe down to nothing, as fast as the scumbag healed. His mother's piece of shit boyfriend, barely even putting up a fight any more.

He'd hurt Aisha.

He hurt Aisha.

He would hurt.

There were so many faces. So many monsters blurring together into one opponent. One obstacle to overcome, except he didn't know why he was trying to overcome it. He didn't know anything any more. His life was gone, years of work made dust on the wind. Everything he'd built had crumbled.

He'd lost his name.

Brian raged and cut and roared...and in that mindless fury, a piece of clarity found him.

_'It doesn't matter.'_

It didn't matter.

The thought felt right. Obvious now that he'd thought it.

It didn't matter what life he was living. Brian Laborn's, or Grue's, or any other. He knew who he was, and that wasn't going to change. A name didn't change that.

He was a warrior, a protector, a leader. He had found a family all his own, and he fought to protect it. Aisha. Taylor. Rachel. Lisa. Alec. Danny. Lacey. The Dockworkers.

The twisted chimera of hate was still fighting, but he knew he had the victory now. The uncertainty couldn't weigh down his claws any longer. He would tear it to shreds and make it an offering to his pack.

Then another appeared in his world. A man in a top hat and skull mask with one sleeve empty and one eye milky white. Berserker rage shoved his claws for the man's neck, and then Brian's own instincts destroyed him.

Without the masks of rage and pain, he only saw the man that was truly there. A man he hardly recognised at all. A man he couldn't bring himself to simply kill. Not while he had a shred of his mind left to him.

With just that, the rush of emotions abandoned Brian and with it went the power he'd found. His claws shrunk to their usual length, his body ceased to strain his clothes to near breaking. Brian saw the world as it was again, and with his thoughts restored he had just enough time to realise his mistake before the deformed whatever-it-was swung its cane into the side of his head.

Head ringing like a bell, Brian disembowelled the thing. As it fell -without a scream or cry, more like an abandoned puppet than a person- he saw the real thing, the suited cape dragging Myriad away. She was bleeding heavily, but conscious and healing. Brian stepped over the body to make sure she stayed out of the fight, maybe even threaten her into making her team back off, and another cane smacked into the back of his leg.

Brian stumbled, caught the next blow and snapped the cane in half with barely a shudder at the discovery that it was clearly made of living bone. Instead he used its attachment to the -actually fairly normal looking- copy of suit guy to yank him to the floor and stomp his rib cage until it shattered.

_'Lisa had better be right about these not being people.'_

He turned to go after Myriad again, but found three more of them in his path. Then he met suit guy's eyes between them and the hook-nosed cape glared purest hatred back at him.

There was no strange sound or glow. There were simply three dozen more bodies between one breath and the next. Over thirty copies appeared around Myriad and her protector, then most of them disappeared again and Brian barely turned in time to start blocking the flurry of blows from those who'd teleported behind him.

A mob closed around him, canes and fists and feet raining down on him. He lashed out where he could but there were just far too many of them. He tried to clear a way out, but for every one he brought down another simply teleported into its place.

Before long he found his strength waning. Without the berserker's vitality that he'd had before, he already knew it was hopeless. No that he had any idea how to reawaken the madness, he had no idea how he'd transformed without Taylor in the first place, let alone how he'd brought out the dangerous side of her power without her ever touching him.

A cane jabbed past his guard and found his gut, hard enough to bend him double despite how he fought not to. Then the rain of blows became a monsoon. He was on the ground in an instant, curling to protect his vitals as best he could.

How long they beat him for, Brian did not know. What he did know was how it ended.

With a _boom_ that rippled through the ground and a pair of crates skimming along the ground to either side of him. They pulped every member of the mob in their path and hit the warehouse wall hard enough to smash open, spilling machine parts everywhere. Meanwhile a wave of exhilarating confidence buoyed him without reason, then vanished just as suddenly as it had come.

Brian set about dispatching the last of his assailants, watching out the corner of his eye as a flying girl in dirty clothes dismantled the last Travellers still standing.

The bulky guy had gotten up again at some point, she dropped to the ground and knocked him stumbling into Aisha and Alec, the two of them setting about tasing him senseless.

Rachel was riding Judas, commanding Brutus, while Angelica was glued to the ground by a thick layer of orange goo. The turtle was down but she was still fighting the gorilla and the octopus. The former was pulped by a flying punch, and the latter was promptly grabbed by both of Rachel's dogs and torn apart between them.

Lisa had the sun girl pinned to the floor, but couldn't seem to get a hand free to tie her up. Her nose ran freely with blood and there was a fair sized patch of it on the back of sun girl's head. Despite that, Lisa was yelling to their new ally, "The girl with all the cuts can take a hit from you!"

_'Was she yelling to her all along?'_ Brian tried to take a step and swayed, or rather he stayed still and the world rolled onto its side. He decided to stay still for a little longer while his regeneration took care of the concussion. Hopefully however he'd done it, it would last long enough to heal the rest too.

He wasn't needed anyway. With their members down and the Undersiders weird new ally floating towards them, Myriad and her partner put their hands up and shouted to their team to give up.

It was only another minute before Brian was in good enough shape to accept their surrender. He did so while running to where Taylor had landed, beaten there by Rachel while the rest of their team set about tying the Travellers up.

Spine thrumming with tension, Brian almost sank to his knees when he found Taylor sitting up and batting away Rachel's hands as the bulkier girl fussed over the taller one. She was bruised along one side, but nothing looked worse than that.

_'Guess she picked up how to break a fall better than I thought.'_

After an all too brief check of his own, Brian glanced around his team -and especially Aisha- to make sure none of them had gotten hurt either. When he found them all standing and looking okay it became hard to hold the impassive mask that he would need.

Only once he was sure they were okay did Brian beckon Lisa to him and stride over to where Myriad was sitting against a rotten old crate.

Lisa opened with, "Guess we're not going with you after all."

If he'd been expecting a reaction Brian would have been disappointed by Myriad's shrug.

She grinned wryly and said, "I guess we're only getting half of our fee."

He didn't stop Lisa from continuing. Leading meant letting people do what they were good at, and his thinker was damn good at gathering information.

"So that's it? You think Coil will just let you go with a sorry?"

"Let us go?" Myriad tossed her hair with a very unladylike snort. "We're mercenaries, not lackeys. Coil can't do a damn thing."

Brian noted the signal for Lisa finding something odd, a quick flick of her index and pinkie fingers, filing it away as she kept interrogating.

"What exactly do you think is going on here?"

"You lot betrayed your boss. He wants you back so he can punish you for it. Sorry but if you expect me to take your side then you should go back in time and alter those rap sheets he showed us." There was a real note of disgust in her voice.

"He can fake those." Lisa protested.

"Yeah, sure. He can fake official PRT documents. Next thing you'll tell me he's secretly a PRT director."

"Whatever. Think we're all sickos if you want, what's important is a guarantee that you don't keep coming after us."

Myriad just raised an eyebrow. Brian almost pitied her.

"You've got a hell of a power there, even better than our Runt."

There. Tension in her shoulders, a furrowing of the brow. Brian wasn't a patch on Lisa but you didn't learn to fight without learning to read people. You couldn't.

"What are you talking about. I'm just a brute. Regeneration and the usual super strength slash toughness. Nothing special."

"Oh, but you are. All those duplicates."

Her sigh was impressively realistic. If Brian couldn't see Lisa's signal that it was bullshit, he'd really have thought she was just bored and exasperated. Of course knowing what to look for was a big advantage, enough that Brian spotted the tremble in her hands quickly.

"Those are projections. My boyfriend here, no point hiding it from a thinker, can project copies of himself, even one or two of others if he knows them well enough."

The guess at her power didn't even make Lisa blink. She just stared at Myriad like the brute was trying to claim the moon was made of cream cheese. "No. That's not what's happening at all. You're a private person though, and I can respect that. If I had your power I wouldn't want to tell anyone either..."

Lisa watched Myriad rock back, watched her boyfriend squirm in his bonds to lay a hand over hers, glaring hatefully up at them. Then she followed through with the finisher that Brian had been waiting for. "Plus, there's that other thing.' She didn't explain to anyone, and by the reaction she got from the Travellers she clearly didn't need to.

A phone appeared in Lisa's hands and she typed away on the screen for a while. Then she held it up and said, "If anything happens to me because of you guys, that info all goes to the PRT. The public too. So I'm sure that when we cut your bonds you're going to get up and leave peacefully. Right?"

For all the anger on their faces, they did just that. Alec and Rachel cut their bonds, while Taylor rested up and Brian looked stern and intimidating.

Personally he thought the glares were childish, and appreciated that Myriad didn't bother with them. Any idiot should understand that Lisa had been the kinder option for dealing with the threat they represented.

Once they'd left, all eyes turned to the next bomb to defuse. Glory Girl had floated quietly a foot off the ground while they talked to the Travellers, now she dropped down to walk among them.

The normally pristine heroine was filthy. Her hair was greasy and hung lank around her. Her clothes looked ragged and old, clearly something she had swapped into. As for the girl herself, there were deep circles beneath her eyes and she looked to be barely holing herself up. Brian wondered if she'd even be able to walk without using her flight.

So it was impressive that despite all that, she still scared the hell out of him when she rolled her shoulder's back and stomped forward with a grim look on her face. He stepped between her and her goal, while behind him Taylor stood up very quickly.

For her part Victoria looked confused for a moment, then stricken. "No, I didn't mean..." She stopped talking and stood still, then she leant to the side so she could see Taylor around him. "I just wanted to thank you. That's why I helped out."

"Thank me?" Taylor winced as she spoke, holding a hand to her bruised side. "What could you need to thank me for?"

"You saved my sister."

"That was noth-" Victoria held up a hand to stop her, face going dark with something that looked a lot like shame.

"I guess you haven't heard." She shot Lisa a glare, then let the already half-hearted expression fall away and smiled slightly instead. "I guess you haven't all heard. She can fill you in anyway, all I wanted to say is that you saved my sister from something I didn't even realise I was doing to her. I'm grateful for that. More than you'll ever know."

With that, she nodded and turned away. It was so abrupt that Brian let her get halfway to the manhole -now a much wider hole surrounded by shattered concrete and stone- before he called out to her.

"Wait!"

The ex-heroine turned to face him, the wary look in her eyes eating at his resolve even as it added to it. He'd have argued against what he was about to do once. That was before though.

"Do you want to come with us?"

"Where?" she said warily.

"I don't know, but honestly it can't be worse than wherever you are right now. We can help you."

"Why?" This time her voice broke, the edge of a sob cracking her tough mask.

Brian didn't rush to answer. He stopped and thought about it, lining up the thoughts that he had been working on since Taylor had joined them, with the epiphany he'd only just come to.

"...because we know what it's like, to be alone. To have no where else to go. So if we can offer a place, then we will."

Her mask cracked completely. Tears began to trickle down Victoria's face as her mouth twisted in a sob. She floated a little closer and Brian thought she was going to accept. Then she smiled and shook her head.

"Thank you. It's kind of you."

"But no?"

"No." With that, she left.

There was silence for a long couple of minutes, then Lisa broke it with a hollow laugh. Saying bitterly, "She won't last long."

Nobody asked for clarification, if she meant before returning to them, or before she met a darker fate.

Brian raised a more important matter, at least for the moment. "We can't leave the city."

"What?" Aisha protested, "When did that happen? Because I liked that plan."

"He's right." Taylor managed not to wince this time. "Coil sent mercenaries for us."

"He'll be watching for us trying to leave, and he'll send more to stop us." Brian finished the thought.

"So what do we do? Because unless you can repeat that trick from the fight, Rachel can't boost any of us." Alec pointed to his hands and Brian realised that he'd returned to human at some point without noticing.

He shook his head. "I don't even know how I did it. That doesn't change anything though. We can't leave with Coil here, we can't stay with Coil here. We've only got one option left."

Lisa looked at him like he'd grown another head and started singing in German. "Have you lost your mind? You want to fight him? I don't even know where his base is for fuck's sake."

"Then we find it." Brian had found his resolve, and he refused to let it falter. He had a family to protect and that meant doing what needed to be done, no matter how hard it was. "There's no other options for us Lisa, you know that better than I do."

She had no response.

"Okay everyone, we had a plan before this mess and we're sticking to the parts of it that we can. We find somewhere to hold up, steal supplies, then figure out our next move." He looked around his team, letting the proud smile he'd been holding back find its way onto his face. "Whatever it is, we're going to make him sorry he tried this shit with us. Now let's go."

Most of his team did just that, heading for the exit without delay. Meanwhile Brian went to retrieve his boot.

Once he'd gotten it back on, he found one of them had done the opposite, hanging back and looking like she wanted to talk. Taylor stared at the ground as soon as he walked up to her, and Brian's had no idea what to say. He never did.

"..."

"..."

"..."

Eventually her silence was too much, he started to fidget like a kid in the principal's office, not even sure why he was so...whatever it was.

Finally she muttered, "...I'm sorry."

"What? What the hell for?"

Taylor tugged at the collar still snug around her neck. Then when he just cocked his head in confusion she almost shouted, "I'm sorry for being useless. I tired to help but I just got beaten and...and I'm sorry for letting you down."

_'Well that shit isn't going to stand.'_

Brian took a step closer to her, ignoring the way he could feel the warmth of her when they were this close. Ignoring everything but the hands he put on her shoulders and the honesty that he had to get across to her.

He looked deep into her eyes and said, "Don't ever think you need to apologise for getting hurt, or being knocked out of the fight for a while. We're going to get that off you, but even if we never did..."

She looked away and he reached out to gently turn her head back to face him.

"You're not just a useful power Taylor. You're our friend. You're my friend. I..." The words caught in his throat and he couldn't force them out. He wasn't even sure if he wanted to, not right then, not right there.

There was something in her eyes though, something that made him wonder if perhaps she'd heard the words anyway.

The moment passed and the world intruded. With Alec as its instrument.

"Hey, are you two coming or what?


	40. Ninth Letter

**Sophs** (202-555-0177)

Hey, we still on fri?

Sure

I'm thinking, we should do more.  
Hello?

More?

Yeah.  
With your part-time job and my volunteering, we barely hang at all  
Mad's parents still won't even let her talk to me.

They still scared that the freak's gonna come get her?

Maybe. I heard from a girl I know from modelling who knows a rich guy who went to a party thing at her house, her parents have hired her a bodyguard.

You heard from someone who heard?

Okay okay, look the point is that I'm lonely and a movie isn't enough.  
I'm thinking shopping. Lots and lots of it.

That sounds cool.

I know what that's code for Soph, and this time you're not winning.  
We're going shopping and you're going to try on at least three dresses I pick out. I'll even buy my favourite.

Not my favourite?

Your favourite will be none of them, which is unacceptable

Em, you don't have to.  
It's not like I don't have any money.  
My part-time job is almost done docking my pay. I promise I'll pay you it all back.  
Aaaand I guess you've gone to that soup shelter place already.  
I still don't get why they make you turn your phone off.

I'm back, got a fun story to tell you but I'll wait til tomorrow.

Hey Em, you mind if I invite someone else to this shopping trip?

* * *

**Mega Bitch** (202-555-0177)

Oi, squirt.

What is it Sophia?

Woah.  
Okay, so you're in one of those moods.

Yes I am, what do you want?

Shit. Sorry.  
Look Missy, I'm not gonna ask if you wanna talk because you'll just say no and I'm no good at talking like that anyway.

Thanks. I guess.  
What did you want?

Well I know you like to spend all your time making those nerdy little dolls, but how'd you like to join me and my friend for some girl time?

They're models.

I'll come. If it's cool with your friend I mean.

She says it is, which means you're gonna be trying on dresses.  
Human shield aquired, ;p

:angry face:

* * *

**Sweet Cheeks** (202-555-0177)

Hi.  
So I was thinking.  
There's a showing of Guns of the Fury 2: Lead Armageddon, tomorrow at 8  
I was booking my ticket and I misclicked and bought 2, so I was thinking if you're not doing anything...

Dennis I'm not going out with you.

What? No I meant like as friends. Teammates  
I mean co-workers.

As co-workers, we'll go to the movies to see a film I didn't like, without our other co-workers.

It was Guns of the Fury that you didn't like, the sequel has a whole new director and everything.  
We could see a different movie, anything on ght now that you like?

Hello?

* * *

**Unknown** (BLOCKED)

Hello Miss Hess

Yeah this is Sophia, what did I sign up for some shit? Cause if you think I'm falling for some scam than your an idiot.

I know  
Do you recall that piece of paper?  
I imagine you've destroyed it by now.

Who the fuck is this.  
How'd you get past the security? You think the PRT won't find you?

Even if I hadn't contracted out delivery, I hardly think I have to fear the PRT's response.  
After all, you're not going to tell them.

Why not? Because of some vague bullshit?  
You're bluffing. Piss off.

You may wish to stop being so rude.  
Unless you would like the world to know every detail of your association with Miss Hebert. Starting with that little prank you and your friends pulled.

Refusing to answer won't make me go away Miss Hess.  
In fact, it might just tempt me to go to press right now. Or maybe I should skip the reporters and go to your bosses.  
They'll be so pleased to hear that their poster child for reformation has been lying to them all along.

What lies? So I messed around with the freak for a while? So what?  
She attacked me with a knife, and a bunch of other girls. She wrecked half the school. Half the Bay's Protectorate team saw her after she went nuts, if it wasn't for me she'd have killed everyone at Winslow.  
You think a little petty shit is gonna make all that go away?

No.  
I think your lies about Miss Hebert's psyche profile will be what interests your bosses.  
Oh the reporters will eat up the story of how the monster who attacked Winslow was created by a government hero. The one thing that gets higher ratings than a redemption story is the sad end to one.  
However your misinformation has given the entire PRT a completely false read on an extremely important cape.  
Do you think they will just forgive you for that?

You don't know shit.

Even if that were true, are your friends so well connected?  
I don't imagine you care about the sycophants, and young Madison is far too well connected, she's gotten away with attempting to burn down her last school, this will hardly be a blip.  
Fortunately you have another friend.

You stay the hell away from Emma

I have no intentions to the contrary.  
All I wish to say is that unlike you Emma Barnes is not a hero, and unlike Miss Clements she isn't filthy rich.  
Actions have consequences Miss Hess.  
Next time I contact you, you will follow my commands.

* * *

**Sophia Hess** (202-555-0177)

Sophia, it's Dean here.  
My parents are throwing a big dance. I'm sure that's not your thing but I heard your friend Madison is going to be there.  
I know you haven't seen her in a while so I got my parents to put plus ones on the invites they give me for the team.  
That way you can bring your friend Emma and the three of you can hang out again.

Thx

It's not a problem.  
I've seen, well you know I can't turn it off, and you've been kinda stressed lately.  
Whatever it is, I promise you'll feel better with a little time with your friends.

* * *

**PRT Dispatch** (911-2145)

ALERT: IMMEDIATE RESPONSE  
Assembly point 12

There in 15 min.  
What's going on?

Multiple Detonations  
Multiple Multi-Parahuman Battles  
Multiple Assaults by Parahuman-associated Criminals

* * *

**Scary Stalker** (202-555-0177)

Hey, I don't know if you have my number. It's Chris.

It's just that none of us have heard from you all day. I know we were busy until late last night, or this morning really, it's just that I noticed you're usually not much for sleeping in and you haven't checked in yet.

You there?

Shit, is this the wrong number?  
Sorry for swearing.

It's the right number, and what have I told you about being so wimpy?  
I'm fine. Just had to spend all day at the hopsital.  
My little brother got hurt in one of the attacks.

Oh my god.

He's fine  
Stopping typing whatever that text was going to be, everything's fine.  
He just got nicked on some rubble is all. Barely any blood.  
My mom's just overreacting. Then I said that she was and she's just all...  
I dunno.

Hey Chris, any chance you could clear it with Beard Boss for me to come in? I know we had overtime yesterday and the rules say no, but I really need to get away from this crap.

I'll see what I can do.

* * *

**Sophs** (202-555-0177)

Hey Soph, I know you're okay, and I wanted to tell you that we're all fine over here.  
My sister was home though, and she was like a block away from one of the fights so obviously she won't stop going on about how she 'almost died' the drama queen.

Good. I knew you'd make it through. Pity you weren't at an attack.

Uh? Typo?

No, I meant like, you'd have totally beaten up the nazis, survivor.

Thanks. But I'm not a badass like you and your friends. I'd probably just get shot.

* * *

**Unknown** (BLOCKED)

It's time for you to do something for me.

Do not keep me waiting.

* * *

**Maybe Not A Bitch** (202-555-0177)

Hey Sophs, you up?

Yeah.  
I don't sleep much.  
Sup?

Don't make fun of me.

No promises.  
I mean yeah, fine, I promise.

My parents are fighting. I can hear them through the wall.  
They said I have to stay home four nights a week, then they act like this.  
Hello?  
I knew it, I'm such an idiot. Of course you're just gonna tell me to suck it up.  
You tell anyone Sophia and I'll rip your neck off.

No, I get it. It sucks.

Well...thanks.

You wanna talk about it?

No.  
Actually yes.  
Can you stay up for a while longer?

Sure.

* * *

**Unknown** (BLOCKED)

Fuck off.  
I'm not doing it.

What are you not doing?

I'm not stabbing my team in the back. No matter what. Emma wouldn't want me to anyway.  
Tell anyone you want, whatever you want.  
You won't make me betray them.

Miss Hess, I have no intention of making you betray them. I want to help them.

What? How?

I have come into some intelligence, which I wish to have acted upon.  
If I simply give it to the PRT, your organisation will be suspicious.  
However if it were to come from a well renowned heroine, who claimed to have garnered it by tailing certain villains to their hideout...

Unless of course you value the Undersiders above your secrets?

Alright.

All right, what?

I'll do it.  
Just give me the info.


	41. Alpha: 6

It was a good thing Brian wasn't a petty man, because if he was, he might have had a problem with Lisa coming up with the solution to their problems.

It was easy to imagine someone like Kaiser in his place. Getting furious with his subordinate for daring to plot a path for him. He'd probably impale them as an example for all the other junior Nazis. This is what happens when you tell the boss what to do.

Speaking for himself, Brian was just glad to have a solution. Though he did spare a moment to wonder if that difference in ego might explain why Kaiser was currently pissing in a tube and hopefully dreaming of being chased by angry minorities with torches and pitchforks.

Anyway, they'd hardly gotten settled into another of the Bay's abundance of rundown industrial buildings before Lisa was calling them all to order for a planning session. Which was extra impressive since with all their stuff on its way to an evidence lock-up, getting settled in had amounted to finding the cleanest and driest areas to lie down. Yet before Brian could muster the will to sit up and decide who to take with him on a supply run -food, bedding, clothes, in that order- their thinker was waving her phone at them.

Taylor perked up, "You've found Coil?"

"What?" Lisa came up short, looking like some of the wind had been taken out of her sails. "No, I mean, he's covered his tracks really well."

"So what did you find?" Aisha sounded less than impressed, and that put an offended expression on Lisa's face that was Brian's cue.

"I'm guessing it's important, so everyone shut up and let her talk." If the mild glare he panned across them all lingered a little longer on Aisha and Alec, well that was surely a coincidence.

His peace keeping got him a quick nod from Lisa before she continued, "Coil hides himself well. Between me and Abwehr, plus the PRT's thinkers, he's had a lot of brainpower aimed at finding where he bases his mercs out of. Since he doesn't hold any real territory hitting his base is the only way to hurt him, and so far no one has managed to do that. He's incredibly careful not to give anything that even I can track back to his stronghold."

"So we're screwed?" Rachel asked. Or possibly stated. It could be hard to tell with her sometimes.

"No. No, because the bastard finally made a mistake."

"He got desperate." Brian mused aloud. "We were becoming more powerful, he was losing control, this whole thing was clumsy. Rushed."

Lisa favoured him with a scowl, "Hey, explaining things is my job...but yeah, I agree."

"What mistake did he make?" Taylor was looking back and forth between him and Lisa, not keeping up for once. Given the way she kept readjusting the metal band around her neck, Brian couldn't blame her for being distracted. His mouth opened to explain but another glare from Lisa closed it.

_'She really loves her detective summations.'_

"..." Lisa bit her lip, then blew out a long sigh. "I guess there's no point keeping it a secret any more." In the corner of his eye, Brian saw Rachel tense. "I've tried to avoid telling anyone since it's dangerous information, but just so we're all on the same page, Shadow Stalker's real name is Sophia Hess."

Rachel relaxed, Alec tensed, and Aisha grinned. His little sister said, "Okay then, so what's the problem? We know a Wards identity, we just blackmail the PRT into backing off."

Everyone else in the group whirled to face her with various shades of dismay on their face.

"Hell no." Brian summed it up for her.

"Why not?"

Alec rubbed his face and said, "You ever heard of Steadfast?"

"No."

"She was the last person who found out a Wards' identity and tried to do something with it. Some mid-league villain from the mid-west. They sent the entire Triumvirate to get her. Plus back up."

The confused look on her face did not instil confidence in Brian. He rushed to fill her in, "The Wards are one of the PRT's biggest successes, but they only work so long as parents feel safe putting their kids in the PRT's hands. Try to fuck with that and..."

"The gloves come off." Taylor spat.

He reached across and gave her shoulder what he hoped was a sympathetic squeeze. Then Brian turned to his sister and looked her dead in the eye. "They don't just take the gloves off. They burn the gloves and you along with them. Identities are bad news, Ward identities are fucking radioactive."

Unsaid was the gratitude that they all felt for Lisa and Taylor keeping the information to themselves. Even if Brian had been vaguely aware of the name Sophia at least from that first day when he'd been called to help load a wounded dog into Rachel's van.

"Which is why I would never have done it if he didn't still have the whole 'threat of horrible death' thing to hold over me." Lisa muttered, chilling Brian's blood.

"What did you do?" His voice was cold, gut twisting with imagined betrayals.

"I didn't give him her identity." She was quick to deny. "...but I gave him a lot of other details, damaging ones, right after Taylor started staying with us. After that I kept as clear as I could of whatever he was planning. I didn't even want to know."

"Lisa." Brian moaned the word, making it equal parts curse and commiseration. His mind raced ahead of his mouth, discarding the theory he'd been running on so far and slotting another in its place.

Rachel put all their feelings into a single word, "Fuck."

"Okay. So obviously you didn't think he'd be dumb enough to do anything with it. Plus the blow back would be focused on him. Still...I figured he'd leaked our base to Shadow Stalker, I didn't think he'd be blackmailing her."

It was the obvious conclusion. As much as his PRT leak had been. After all, it would be easy for the PRT to believe that his obsessive stalker had tailed them to their base one time.

"He had to make sure that she didn't tell the truth about where the information came from." Lisa confirmed.

"Let's get to the good news." Brian heard the edge of despair in his own voice, but just thinking of how close they might have come to an unfettered PRT response...

A warm squeeze of his own shoulder pulled Brian from his thoughts. With some surprise he found Taylor had returned the comforting gesture, even if she was quick to snatch her hand back when he turned his neck to look at it.

Lisa attempted a grin. "For those not keeping up-" Alec flipped her the bird, "-since we know the leak's target, we can see an immediate problem for Coil. He didn't have me."

It was kind of cute, the way Taylor's eyebrows shot up as realisation crossed her face. His other three teammates still looked confused though, so Lisa continued, "He had to communicate through a middleman, at least at first, plus he needed more information. All of which he'd ask of me normally, only I wasn't behaving any more. So he had to call in an outside contractor."

She held up her phone, the screen displaying a grainy cell phone video with something very familiar at the centre of it.

"And I know who he called."

* * *

A few hours later, well after sunset, the Undersiders found themselves waiting in an alley between an abandoned warehouse and a sleepy homeless shelter.

Thanks to several careful thefts, Brian and his team were fed, clothed and clean. They were also nervous.

He'd positioned Alec high up on a fire escape, with a good view up and down their chosen meeting place. Aisha was out on the street with clear instructions to vanish the moment their meeting began. Rachel's dogs were even boosted enough to come up to his gut, skin bulging and beginning to split.

None of it felt like enough. Not with the entire PRT out to get them. Not with the powers of their evening rendezvous.

For the thousandth time, Brian reminded himself that they had no choice and tried very hard to look menacing in the dark jeans and black shirt that he'd managed to cobble together. A little of his power helped, but he still wished he'd thought to put his costume on that morning.

Clenching his fists reminded him that he didn't even have gloves to protect his hands if he started throwing punches. Lisa had grabbed a few guns on her way out of the loft, but shoving one into his waistband had made him feel like a cliché. Worse, it had made him feel like a cliché about to blow his junk off. Thus he'd left them to her and didn't have any tools or weapons to his name.

Behind him his friends shifted but held their positions, and something deep in Brian's chest growled approvingly. He splayed his fingers and felt something shift at each fingertip, a tingle thrumming down his spine and raising hairs at the back of his neck.

_'Maybe not totally unarmed then.'_

The darkness fled from a pinprick of silver light, and Brian let his darkness slide over his skin. The gathering light announced that it was showtime.

Light formed a pane of silver, floating in the air. The same one that had spewed fliers on the cell phone video. The same one that had stolen away Othala after they defeated Kaiser.

A short woman stepped through and Grue stepped forward, hand extended in a greeting. When she took it he looked down at her and said smoothly, "Ostium."

Her costume was showy and impractical, overlapping scales of glass in a thousand colours that formed a beautiful dress and headdress, but which also made it reassuringly clear that she was no fighter. They tinkled prettily when she cocked her head to the side and said, "I prefer Dominas."

Grue was about to reply that he wasn't going to call her mistress, already feeling less tense, when a guttural scream sounded behind her.

"You!" Taylor shook with rage. No, her collar was lit up. It took a moment for Brian to realise that she was trying to transform despite it, shaking from the current it sent through her with every attempt.

Dominas was backing towards her portal, her costume tinkling as she began to shake as well. Absently Brian caught her by the arm and held her in place. Her gaze snapped up to him, but rather than trying to explain himself Brian stepped forward and extended a hand towards Taylor with the palm out. He pushed a calm he definitely wasn't feeling into his voice, "Runt. Stop."

"Stop?" She wasn't trying to transform any more, but there was hate twisting her face when she looked his way. Then she caught him completely off guard by stepping forward and driving her fist into Dominas' face in with a _crak_ of shattering glass.

Brian let go of the mercenary and caught Taylor before she could follow through. Dominas fell to the ground, holding a hand to the shattered glass along the side of her face. He spared her a glance before focusing on wrapping a bandage around Taylor's shredded knuckles.

At least until she started to get up.

"What the fuck is wrong with you! I knew you had a crazy bitch but I thought you had her on a leash! You think I'm gonna take a client who-!"

"Shut up." Brian cut through her rage, looming over the rogue without making any attempt to hide the fury on his own face. "I'm not stupid and neither is my teammate. If she hit you then she knows you, and you've done something."

A memory nagged at him as he spoke, snatches of the articles he'd read when Taylor joined, a list of names. _'Wait...'_

The shattered glass revealed a sliver of pale skin and light brown hair, drawing out the memory of a picture he'd found online. An unsecured social media account that had vanished just a few days later. All told it was enough pieces of the puzzle that when she began trying to get up again Brian could keep her on the ground with a single sentence.

"Did you really think an anagram was a smart choice for your name?"

That made her so still that even the shaking stopped. The gentle tinkling of glass faded away, leaving only distant traffic and Taylor's harsh breathing to fill the night air. Dominas looked frantically between his face and Taylor's...and Brian reminded himself what they were there for.

"We don't want to hurt you." He directed the words as much to Taylor as Dominas, giving her a firm look to drive it home. Taylor was the first to look away.

"I'm not apologising." Was all she left him with as she tore her hand away and stomped over to Rachel. Lisa stepped up to take her place, agitation showing even through her domino mask and the poker face she wore in costume.

"Since we already know who you are, and you probably want that conversation to happen away from prying ears, how about we take this somewhere more private?" Lisa grinned, her smirk so predatory that Brian could have sworn she'd achieved independent transformation too. "I hear your parents own a pretty nice mansion."

Madison Clements slumped against the alley ground, her elaborate costume giving her misery a musical note. Then she reached up and took the hand Lisa extended to pull her to her feet. "Fine."

It took a few tries for her to turn her back on them, but eventually she managed with only a few dozen backward glances at Taylor. With her attention on her still floating portal, she began to pull shard of light out of thin air, each a different colour and shape. They merged with the edges of the portal, their colour bleeding out into it until they were the same shade of silver, each piece expanding the portal slightly until it pulsed and abruptly grew to fill the alley from one side to the other.

She made to step through and Lisa looped their arms together so casually that it almost didn't seem like she was being held back. "How about a few of us go first, then you and I can go through together. We're all headed the same way after all."

Lisa got a defeated nod from the shorter cape without even having to draw the gun tucked into the back of her jeans.

Barely a minute later Brian followed the two of them through the portal, had a fraction of a second of feeling like he was in freefall and being launched into orbit and pulled in every direction at once, then he stumbled into the girliest bedroom he'd ever imagined.

Pink predominated. Almost everything he could see was soft, fluffy, or at least draped with a cloth covering. The towering four poster bed that loomed on the other side of the hall -though by appearances he had to assume that the whole thing was just one bedroom- looked like it should be groaning under the sheer weight of stuffed animals piled atop it.

Brian had always thought that the Undersiders' loft was luxurious. Seeing a single bedroom as large as their lounge was oddly irritating.

"Okay, alright!" Madison snapped as she tore her arm free from Lisa's grip. "I've let you into my home, now can I please go get changed? I feel ridiculous being the only one in costume."

Lisa let her go, but walked to the side just enough to keep an eye on the girl as she stepped behind a changing screen and glass started to clatter.

Which was about when it started to hit Brian that their plan had gone from 'negotiate with a rogue cape' to 'hold her hostage, politely'. Sighing, which was beginning to feel like a habit, he turned to look for Taylor and check on how she was doing.

He found her staring at a dresser, or rather at the huge mirror it sat in front of. Photos had been taped to it, enough of them to fill an album. Mostly featuring a trio of girls in various places and poses. He recognised a few from his research into Taylor's story, which made him feel a bit like a stalker. Taylor wasn't looking at any of those though.

Brian leaned closer to see the photo she was fixated on, and got a glimpse of smiling faces flanking someone wrapped in duct tape before Taylor snatched it from the mirror. It crumpled in her hand and he put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

Only to have his hand violently shrugged off as she spun to glare at him. "Why did you stop me." She hissed, low and angry and catching him completely off guard.

"Wha?"

"You stopped me hitting her. What, you're defending her now? I guess she's cute, but I thought you had more taste than that."

Anger curled his fingers. Brian forced them straight before he took Taylor's shoulders firmly in hand and leant in to return her glare.

"I stopped you because you were going to cut yourself to shreds beating our only source to death." She opened her mouth but Brian cut her off in a surge of frustration. "We're on your side Taylor, but you need to stop thinking about yourself and remember that this is about all of us. Not just you or me, or her."

He got a mutinous look in reply, but after a long pause, she jerked her head in a nod and tore herself out of his grip. Brian opened his mouth to say...something, but again he found the words wouldn't come out. This time he let the silence remain, heavy and aching between them.

Madison emerged from behind the changing screen, Lisa trailing behind her. The costume of stained glass had been replaced with a light summer dress and a pair of fluffy slippers with some kind of mascot grinning from the tips of them.

She was tiny, but she shot a glare around at all of them before settling on Brian. "So are we getting to the point, or do you want to make a few more veiled threats first?"

"It's your own fault for coming in person. We-" He resisted the urge to look at Lisa, "-thought you'd just speak through a portal." A frown creased his forehead. "Why did you come in person? You can't have thought you'd win against all of us."

The glare died, then she stopped looking at them at all. For long seconds their host kept her eyes on her own slippers, before she finally looked up. Not at Brian, but at Taylor.

"I wanted to say sorry."

"Fuck off." Taylor replied.

"I mean it. I'm sorry about how things went."

Taylor sneered at her. "If you want to say sorry then how about you go to the press?"

"And say what? Hey you know that criminal who did all those bad things, well she was a nice girl before me and my friends spent a few years having fun at her expense."

"H-having fun? That's what you want to call it?" Taylor's voice was steadily rising towards a shout.

Despite her mounting trembling, Madison matched her volume. "Don't try to change the subject. The point is that if you think you can get off for everything you've done by now then you're delusional."

"If you were really sorry then you'd fucking try."

"I'm not destroying my friends' lives just to make you feel better Taylor."

"You owe me!" Taylor screamed at her, standing just a few feet away and looming over the shorter girl. "You owe me that! You owe me more-!"

"I owe you?" Madison screamed right back. "I don't owe you shit Taylor, or did you forget the part where you tried to kill us? Where do you think I got my fucking powers from you psycho freak!"

Taylor laughed mirthlessly, "Oh? You got powers from someone trying to kill you? Tell me how that feels? Because I seem to recall your stubby little shoes among the ones stomping me to death Madison!"

"You attacked us first! You went for Emma! You pulled a knife on Sophia!"

"Because you put me in the fucking hospital! You thought that shit was funny!"

"We were dumb, and I'm sorry!" Madison screamed in Taylor's face, "That doesn't make it okay to, to, you were going to..." She trailed off, grabbing one hand in the other as she began to shake. Abruptly, Brian saw her look right at Taylor and raw terror slam into her face. Like she'd only just remembered who she was yelling at. Madison backed away and Taylor took a step forward for each one the smaller girl took back.

"I see. I get it now. You're scared. When you don't have all that anger to hide behind, you're fucking terrified." Taylor had an ugly grin painted across her face, leaning over Madison and shaking with something dark. Something Brian recognised.

He was trying to decide whether to step in when she rippled and screamed, not in rage but in pain. Taylor spasmed and fell to the ground, shaking and panting.

Madison blinked, then looked down at her as realisation dawned across her face. "That thing on your neck, it stops you from using your powers, doesn't it." Whatever she'd been about to say, Taylor cut her off by grabbing her ankle and pulling her legs out from under them.

Taylor clawed her way up Madison's body as the brunette kicked and struggled beneath her. Which was when Brian decided to intervene. He stepped up, beckoning Rachel from where the rest of the team had copied him in staying the hell out of the screaming, and the two of them pulled Taylor off her victim.

He left his teammate with Rachel, confident that the big girl would be able to hold her back and comfort her at the same time. Then Brian roughly pulled the other combatant to her feet.

Madison flashed him a grateful smile and said, "Thanks for helpi-"

"Shut up."

The interruption hit her like a slap. Brian couldn't find it in himself to care.

"We're not here to hurt you, or to make enemies. So I pulled my friend off you." He let darkness leak out, making him look bigger and giving his voice an extra layer of echo. "We're not here to make friends either. Don't think for one moment that I wouldn't let her beat the shit out of you any other time. But right now we have a common enemy."

She gulped. Then nodded a little and said, "Coil."

"You've been working for him." It wasn't a question.

"He seemed like a safer client than the other gangs, and I needed some money to get started."

"You definitely needed more money." Spat Taylor from where Rachel was standing behind her with the thinner girl firmly wrapped in a hug.

"Actually I did."

"Needed to expand your fucking closet?"

"You think my life is easy Taylor? You think my parents are some fairy tale? I'm hiding this from them you idiot. The whole point is to get away from here."

"Oh how terrible for you, did they buy you too many stuffed animals?"

"It's none of your business why." She turned back to face Brian, "I got him some info, delivered a message to Sophia's room at the Wards HQ. Then-"

"Funny how you talk about not betraying your friends, but you helped Coil move against Sophia."

"Sophia lied to me. To everyone except Emma. I can forgive Ems for keeping her secret, but I told her enough of mine...she should have told me."

Brian turned and made a sharp gesture across his lips, glad to see understanding on Taylor's face this time, even if there was still plenty of anger. Madison was smiling slightly when he turned back and he had to admit a brief impulse to slap the expression off her face. Then she cast her eyes downward and it died, his shameful impulse going with it.

"He got me to pick up that Empire cape. That was the last thing I did for him."

"You mean kidnap." Brian kept his voice as gentle as he could, but there was a limit to how he'd let her dress up her actions.

"Yeah, okay, kidnap. Which wasn't...me. I cut ties after that, but I got the feeling he wasn't done with me and so when I got your call-" She nodded to Lisa. "-I took the meeting."

"We're out to bring him down." Brian clarified, just in case.

"Good. The sooner the better."

Lisa came forward at that, the predatory smile back on her face. This time Brian wasn't imagining the extra length in her canines. Though it vanished a few seconds later, her teeth returning to human limits.

"All we need from you is a location. Which you have, don't you Dominas? I'm guessing he's taken over one of the Endbringer shelters somehow." The use of her cape name seemed to give Madison back some composure. She drew herself up and smiled in what she probably thought was a haughty fashion, but which really made her look like a kid playing dress up.

"Sorry, but you're way off." Lisa's face fell for an instant before she covered the emotion with a smile. Madison didn't seem to notice. "You know that building on fifth that they finished last year? The big one opposite the offices for Stevens and Stevens?"

Lisa gaped at her. "He's in a fucking skyscraper? Which floo-, no, no he owns the whole building. Of course he does."

Madison nodded. "I followed the trail to it, then watched it for a while." She pulled a shard of light out of the air, then set it in the air where the colour drained out of it to reveal a bird's eye view of the city. "His guys get in through tunnels beneath the building, then use private elevators to get above the public floors."

"What's the security like on the tunnels?"

"Two checkpoints, with a pair of armed guards on each. Machine guns with these underslung things that I think must be tinkertech. After that it's just a lot of chokepoints and fingerprint readers."

Brian nodded his thanks, then had a thought. "Could you-?"

"No. I'm not giving you a portal in. If you fail then I don't want him tracing things beck to me. He doesn't know I know where he keeps his toys and I like it that way."

Lisa smiled with a cruel glint in her eyes. "Did you ever meet him in person?"

"No, just spoke through a portal. Why?"

"Just checking, if you had then he'd have tortured you to check what you knew. You're probably safe like this." Madison stumbled back like she'd been shoved, eyes wide and fearful.

Not that he cared about her any more. They had their info, and Brian could already feel a plan starting to form.

He asked Lisa, "If we can get to him, take him down, what kind of resources does Coil have?"

She snorted. "Enough that taking him down is going to be a real bitch."

"No. Not those kinds of resources. I mean information. Money. Stocks."

His team's thinker, his friend, looked up at him and frowned. Then her eyes widened and Brian knew she'd caught on to the plan he was cooking up. Her eyes darted around, her frown deepened, and then the beginnings of a smile began to show.

"It just might work. With a few tweaks from yours truly."

They shared a grin, full of fear and uncertainty, full of surety and courage. Then Brian turned at the sound of yet another exchange between Taylor and Madison.

_'I'm not saving that girl again.'_

"So...we're even?" Madison had gotten closer to Taylor, looking at her with an unsure expression.

"Even?" Taylor muttered, then again, "Even?"

Madison began to nod, then scrambled backwards as Taylor hurled herself forward and grabbed a fistful of the smaller girl's dress.

"Like hell we're even! You ruined my life you two-faced coward!"

The object of her wrath shook like a leaf in a hurricane, staring up at her with eyes wide and white with panic. Then she blinked rapidly -her gaze focusing on Taylor's collar- and scowled even as she continued to shake.

"You ruined your own life Taylor." She spat, "You're the one who went nuts. You're the one who tried to kill me. Get down off your fucking high horse."

"Dominas?" Said a new voice, only it wasn't new at all.

A short fat boy in a formal shirt and tie walked in through the door they'd all ignored until now. He looked different without the mask and the belts of random tech, but it was hard to forget the cape that had almost turned Taylor to stone.

Lisa's laugh had an edge of hysteria to it. "Oh so this is just where all of you end up huh? Are the Travellers waiting around the corner too?"

The Empire tinker glanced at her in confusion, then returned his attention to the brewing fight. "Please don't hurt her, she doesn't deserve it."

Taylor had let go, but it looked to be more out of confusion than anything else.

Brian spoke for his team. "What the hell are you going here?"

The tinker looked like a deer in the headlights, even more so when Madison ran around to put him between her and the rest of them. Once hidden by his bulk she spoke up, "He needed a place to stay. Our parents went to a few parties together when we were younger, rich people stuff. I offered to let him crash with me. Not like my parents even noticed." There was a bitter edge in her voice, but Brian was a lot more interested in all the things that weren't said.

"Kaiser was your dad." Blurted Lisa, clamping her hands over her mouth a second later. The tinker didn't deny it though, and Brian wasn't sure how to take that. He'd never been close to a Nazi without violence before.

"My name is Theo Anders." The tinker spoke with a crisp educated accent, and he met Brian's eyes without any of the disgust Brian had expected. "I am not like my father, or his organisation."

"You fought for them." Brian said, but even as he said it he was imagining himself in those shoes. His father demanding that he put his powers to use for him.

_'Would I have said no?'_ It was an uncomfortable question to consider.

"His dad was awful." Madison stepped around to the side enough to glare at them, daring them to disagree with her eyes alone. "So is his stepmom, she doesn't even write for years, then the cow actually tried to reach out to him after his dad..." Her rant trailed off, like she was just remembering her audience were the very people who put Kaiser in a coma and brought down his Empire.

It was a very awkward silence that Brian forced himself to speak up in. "If you're becoming a rogue too, then I'd like to pay you for your services. We have something we'd like you to use your transmutation cannon thing on." He gestured to Taylor's neck, already having to hold back a grin at such an unexpected windfall.

"Are you serious?" He sounded genuinely curious, with a hint of polite shock.

Brian wasn't sure what to say. "Um?"

Theo Anders addressed his words to Taylor in particular, but Brian felt them beat against each of them. "You put my father in a coma. One that he will likely never wake from, as his attack on Panacea spurned every healer but the one Coil has taken."

Brian hadn't thought of that, not after what Madison had said. So he was fumbling for a reply when the girl herself snorted and said, "Yeah, real dad of the year material. You're so broken up about what happened to him."

The tinker stepped away from Madison, then looked around at them all. There was something in his eyes that gave Brian pause. Something quiet but unshakeable.

"He was not a good man. In fact he was a terrible man. Cruel, violent, hungry for power. A poor excuse for a father. Yet he was still my father, and he always will be. That means something." A fragile smile found it's way to Theo's face. "I am honestly sorry, however I cannot help the woman who crippled him."

If it had been Madison denying them, Brian would have asked Rachel to dangle her out the nearest window until she changed her mind. What he'd seen in the fat boy's eyes made Brian very sure that such tactics wouldn't work on Theo, even if he was willing to go that far against someone who seemed to be an innocent.

"I understand." Said Brian. Not sure if he really did.

"Uh." Madison looked a little stunned by Theo's words. "I'll take you guys back where you were. Or somewhere else if you'd like."

Rather than dwelling on the thwarted opportunity, Brian looked ahead. He thought of the strength lurking in his arms and said, "One of the abandoned warehouses near the waterfront. On the other side of the The Docks from where we met."

As she began to pull light out of the air and piece together a portal, he looked around at his team.

"We need to get some practice before the showdown."


	42. Alpha: 7

Slumped against the ground, Brian drove his fist into the splintered boards beneath him.

It didn't help. Rather than venting his frustration, his hand's failure to smash through the floorboards only pissed him off even more.

After hours of effort his progress was actually negative. The tension that had sung in his fists was dead. The claws wouldn't erupt from his fingers and his arms refused to thicken with muscle.

At least the floor was cool against his bare back. Soothing...with a pleasant scratching whenever he shifted position. Brian turned his head to watch his snoozing team and grinned between panted breaths. "Shoulda just, gotten, a few more, hours, sleep."

Lisa was smiling in her sleep. As if to say, 'Yeah dumbass. Waking up early to keep training was stupid. Duh.'

Alec and Aisha both wore the slack features of the truly exhausted. Features that were a little too close for his liking.

Rachel was buried beneath her dogs, the three of them hiding all but a few glimpses of her outline.

As for their final member, Brian had to roll the other way to get a look at Taylor.

While the rest of them had tried to unlock the lingering transformation within them, he had set Aisha to more normal kinds of training. It hadn't taken Taylor long to join her despite the bandages wrapped around her hand and ribs.

Something had inspired him to give them space, despite how much his instincts screamed at him to intervene and watch over them. Especially when they started throwing each other around.

Somewhere along the way, while he was focusing on his own mounting frustration instead of the two of them, one of them had said something that ignited the tension between them. A shouting match had ensured, only their need to avoid notice had meant both girls hissed at each other instead of yelling. Too low for him to hear, for anyone but Lisa to know what they were saying. Then they'd suddenly gone silent and the next he knew they were back to practising.

Lisa refused to tell him what had gone on, but Brian could see for himself that some of the tension had drained away. Not all of it.

The part he didn't understand in the slightest had been when they'd been eating -junk from a convenience store with a sleepy clerk- and both girls had found time to apologise to him. Aisha had punched him lightly in the arm afterwards, and Taylor had looked simultaneously guilty and mutinous. Neither of them had explained what it was they were apologising for though, and Brian had wilted at the thought of asking them.

In the quiet of the night, it all seemed a little foolish. A happy little piece of personal conflict amidst the struggle they were enduring. _'Nevertheless,'_ Brian thought, _'it would be nice to know what they were talking about.'_

It wasn't just the hearing he missed either. His sense of smell had been an odd comfort in the last few weeks. Something he'd never given much thought to before, but which was wonderful once boosted. Being able to tell when his friends were nearby, even pick up on fragments of their moods. Now that he lacked it, Brian felt more distant than he had in a while. More alone.

At that moment he could pick up only snatches. Taylor for instance, still smelt of some kind of flower, though sweat was starting to overpower it after this long on the run. He fancied that he might be able to pick up the trace scent of paper as well, but beyond that his human nose failed.

A long inhale did not change anything, still he couldn't catch the full range of her. Still the unease lingered in his chest. An instinct with no words.

Sleep dragged his eyes closed and it bloomed into a real sense of loneliness. Even knowing they were there, the animal certainty that his pack was far away caught Brian in the gut and made him gasp. Almost desperately he searched for the scent and found...

Flowers, weaving through his memory until they found a flower shop he used to run past. Ink, paper, the scent of printed words, of happy hours spent alone in the company of wondrous creatures. Sweat, effort's odour declaring strength and courage. Something...something...musky...was that what people smelled like?

Only when he looked for the final note and realised that the tangy scent had dwindled to nothing, only then did Brian realise what was happening. His eyes snapped open and he shot upright just a little faster than he'd ever been able to achieve with his normal body.

He saw the same darkness, dimly lit by distant streetlights. Then he turned to look at his sister and made himself remember her face in detail. He thought to compare his memory to the reality, to keep his image of her strong...and the darkness fled from his enhanced sight.

Alec's face was just as clear, close to her but without the obscuring edge of the dark Brian found he couldn't get angry at the younger boy. There was an innocence to his face while he slept, one Brian would never normally have associated with him. Staring down at them, Brian thought of the strength he would need to keep them safe, his arms growing hot and light.

There was no need to look down or lift his hands. He could feel the claws at each fingertip.

A grin spread across his face with the ease that he only felt when transformed. It was enough to prove it, but Brian wanted more. He needed more. So he thought of them all, his friends, the family he had found for himself, the pack that he would protect until the end, whatever that end might be.

Then he tossed back his head, canine ears twitching, tail wagging gently back and forth, hands clenched into determined fists, and Brian Laborn howled his joy to the skies. Watched only by the full moon sinking across the sky.

* * *

Morning came, and with it a hail of fists thumping at his chest.

Eventually Brian caught Aisha's wrists and apologised for waking her up in the middle of the night. Plus keeping her awake while he spoke with everyone else...and then spending an hour training with them while she tried to get back to sleep.

After being hit a few more times, he'd joined the others in digging through the remains of their food supply. From the mass of brightly coloured packaging he picked out a few of the limp sandwiches -sparing a thought to bemoan that they'd already finished all the good ones- and a packet of chips, then he'd promised himself an extra long run when things settled down and grabbed a box of twinkies.

"Now how do you expect to keep your girlish figure if you eat like that?" Alec asked as he threw himself down on the same rotted bench that Brian had chosen to sit on. It creaked alarmingly but held, somehow. Eyeing the small mountain of junk food in Alec's arms, Brian had to wonder whether the food outweighed Alec's slender build. It didn't seem impossible.

"Hey, quit eyeing my haul." Alec said through a mouthful of cookie dough and chips. "If you wanted something better than sandwiches then you should have grabbed it earlier."

Brian took a bite of one of his sandwiches and grinned despite the bland taste. "I'm just wondering how long you'll last on that kind of diet. I guess the mighty Regent will be dying of a heart attack."

"The remarkable Regent will be dying at the age of three hundred and two, in a bed with silk sheets and a dozen beautiful hookers."

"Of a heart attack."

Alec snorted his soda all over the floor. When he was done choking, he glared up at Brian without malice. "Oi, oi. Wait until I'm done drinking next time."

Without hunger to numb his taste buds, Brian was all too aware that his sandwich tasted like two slices of damp cardboard glued together with paste. He tossed the remains away in disgust and began unwrapping a twinkie.

As if summoned by the sound, Lisa had appeared on the other side of Alec when Brian looked back to him. She'd also managed to snag one of his twinkies, which struck him as showing off.

"Nope. This is showing off." With that, Lisa tossed him an unfamiliar square of leather. It took Brian a moment to remember the wallet he'd bought along with the junk food. The one that he'd had in his back pocket when he sat down to eat.

His scowl earned him a wink as Lisa chomped on her pilfered snack.

The levity couldn't last though, soon seriousness stole back across his face and Lisa's mirrored the transformation. She popped the last of her food into her mouth and chewed mechanically. With a thick swallow, she said, "Taylor wants to contact her dad."

A dozen thoughts flashed through Brian's head, but one stood out above the others. "Will they be able to transform too?"

As much as involving them worried him, they were in no position to turn down the aid of the Dockworkers if it was available. Relief warred with disappointment when Lisa shook her head. "They've got maybe two or three transformations each, and that's the highest numbers among them. Most have been turned just once."

"Is that important?" Taylor cut into the conversation, standing a few feet away with steel in her eyes and crumbs on her t-shirt. Aisha slouched just behind her, still engaged with the remains of a cupcake.

"It's hard to tell with powers, but I think it is." Lisa nodded in Brian's direction. "Thanks to the two of you spending so much time training, Brian's had the most transformations out of us all."

"You think that's why I was the first to transform by myself?"

Lisa nodded. He was opening his mouth to reply when a flash of movement drew his eye to the sagging catwalks hanging from the warehouse roof. He caught a glimpse of red and black and hurled himself to his feet in time to catch Trickster by the throat.

The teleporter had appeared barely two steps away from them, inches to the side of Taylor.

_'No, his eye is messed up. It's a duplicate.'_

Even knowing that, even with his hand around the man's throat and his friends behind him...Brian still hesitated. It was a mere handful of seconds before he flexed transforming fingers and crushed the clone's neck, but that was time enough for The Travellers to appear. Just one duplicate this time. A deformed blonde in baggy clothes, standing beside a much healthier version of the gorilla thing created -Brian assumed- by the member who Lisa had declared to create projections.

The empty corpse slumped to the ground, followed by the gaze of the original. Trickster grinned beneath his skull mask and said, "Now there's a disquieting sight."

Already the rest of the Undersiders were on their feet, hands becoming claws and ears poking out of their hair. Rachel snarled and the enemy team took a hurried step back. Something strange in their demeanour.

"You're not here to fight." Brian stated confidently.

Myriad nodded, stepping forward with equal confidence. Her clothes still had the damage from their last fight, but there was no anger in her face. At least not in the parts of it he could see.

"We need to talk."

Trickster was all but glued to her side, holding his cane so tightly that his gloves creaked, despite the easy smile on his face. Behind them the gorilla was growling to match Rachel, while the other two members squared their shoulders and glared down Alec and Taylor.

"Talking is good. Let's go with that." He kept his voice calm, mind racing to figure out their game.

"You can start with an explanation for that." Lisa spat, jabbing her finger at the deformed duplicate of the blonde girl she'd fought last time. Not that it was all that deformed looking, but it was a little shorter than the sun-covered cape and that had to indicate some kind of problem hidden beneath her clothes.

Another explanation made itself known when the duplicate pushed back its hood, and Lisa's face smirked beneath it.

It was a close thing, but Brian resisted the urge to lash out at Myriad. He even kept most of the fury out of his voice, "Explain. Now." When she hesitated, he snapped. "It's pretty obvious your excuse last time was bullshit."

Around them both teams grew tenser and tenser. The air became thick with the promise of violence, anticipation's flavour creeping into the gathered scents.

"...Okay" Myriad nipped the imminent fight in the bud. "It's my power. I can make clones of anything I touch. Anything living."

Brian stumbled back, not sure if he was terrified or scared shitless. _'No wonder she didn't want anyone to know. That's as bad as Taylor and Rachel working together. Worse.'_

"I knew that part already." Lisa hadn't calmed down at all. "I was asking why you decided to clone me! In fact I'd like to know how you even..." She trailed off, eyes fixed on the girl she'd fought last time. A girl whose gloved hand was outstretched, a few long blonde hairs in the palm.

Lisa had beaten her soundly, so soundly that Brian had barely bothered to remember the nervous looking girl. Now he watched her hesitant posture with a lot more concern. Privately he resolved not to underestimate the other team again.

"So you planned to use a clone of Tattletale to track us down." That part was obvious, but it was what he didn't yet know that scared him. "You had a perfect opportunity to ambush us, so why waste it?"

Myriad favoured him with a sour look, then turned him grimace to Lisa and said, "I don't say this often, but you were right."

"Coil didn't let you go with a smile and a wave? What a shock."

The other villain team shifted and muttered angrily, but none of them denied her declaration.

"Is it blackmail?" Taylor stepped into the discussion, reminding Brian of what Lisa had said the last time.

"Yes, and no." Myriad sighed heavily and began to pace. "There's another group out there, call them a spin off of us."

"Clones?"

Taylor's question stopped Myriad's pacing, getting a wide eyed look out of her before the Travellers' leader began to laugh. There was a manic edge to her humour, a hint of too much pressure boiling over. Eventually though, her chuckles subsided and she shook her head, "No. Not clones. Just regular assholes."

"Dangerous ones." The bulky guy finally spoke, his voice wasn't as deep as Brian expected. Younger too.

"So what? He's threatened to tell them where you are?" Brian tried to move things along.

"That and tell the PRT what I can do. Unless we finish the job and find you lot for him." Before anyone could react to her words, myriad continued, "The problem is that we're not stupid. He's not just going to let us go when we're done with that. It'll just be one thing after another, him stringing us along until we've got nothing left to offer him."

Hope bloomed in his chest and Brian had to fight to keep it out of his voice, "So?"

"So," Myriad raised her hand and offered him the palm, "it seems that we have an enemy in common."

He took her hand.

"Sweet." said Aisha as she appeared behind Myriad. An impressively large knife dangling from her fingers. "I guess that means I can stop hiding."

* * *

Aisha's stunt almost made for the shortest alliance ever, but forcing her to apologise had been enough to keep the peace. Barely.

After that it had taken surprisingly little time to hash out their plan. Between him and Taylor on one side, and Myriad on the other, it quickly became clear that they had an abundance of tactical minds available to them.

While the rest of their teams had interacted with a peculiar blend of violent tension and teenage awkwardness, they'd drawn up plans and torn them apart over and over. The only break had come when they'd called Lisa over from where she was teaching Sundancer -the girl in the sun patterned costume- to play poker. Then Myriad had beckoned her clone to come help them as well. Then, on Lisa's insistence, they'd shot the clone in the head.

The only real problem had been a discussion that he, Lisa, and Taylor had had privately. They'd wandered into a corner and talked over one part in particular. One that he's almost punched Lisa for suggesting, but which Taylor had surprised him by going along with. Then it had been back to the planning table like their aside never happened.

In the end they'd arrived at a plan that seemed as good as they were likely to get it. Brian leaned back and rolled his shoulders to try and get some of the stiffness out of them. Leaning forward was a good way to seem politely attentive but it was hell to hold the position for too long. Annoyingly the regeneration didn't help much.

"That went well." Taylor whispered to him, leaning close while Myriad stood and walked over to Trickster. He'd been showing Alec his cane, but broke off the conversation the moment Myriad called for his attention. An urge to make a whipping sound tickled Brian's thoughts. Instead of compromising their alliance with petty jokes he turned to reply to Taylor.

Which was why he saw growing light in the windows behind her. This time he didn't hesitate, sweeping her into his arms even as he dove for cover and screamed, "Capes!"

Then an entire wall of the warehouse vanished in a storm of light and noise. Not one anyone had been standing near, thankfully, but the pressure wave still buffeted them all. A few bits of rubble bounced across the floor, then the din ended as quickly as it had begun. Left behind was a cloud of dust that none of them were naïve enough to waste time staring at.

Rachel was sprinting towards the front exit, Myriad was running for the back with Trickster's limp body slung over her shoulder. There was no time to ask questions. Brian hefted Taylor onto his back, looked around to check Aisha was also being carried, and -once he'd found her over Lisa's shoulder- followed Rachel's lead.

Her dogs had been big enough to tear the doorway a lot wider as they pushed through it, so Brian was expecting things to be messy when he got outside. An expectation that did little to prepare him for the chaos he ran into.

The street was a shattered ruin, enough that vehicles would be entirely useless. Dust and smoke hung thick in the air, obscuring the massive shapes of Rachel's dogs, darting back and forth to avoid strafing columns of light. Everywhere the helical columns hit, the ground buckled and shattered further. Then things got worse.

The first sign of other heroes came from a quiet roar, one that Brian recognised from a hell of a lot of videos of Armsmaster's patrols. They were uploaded frequently enough that every villain in the city knew the sound, and that it was too quiet to hear until it was far too late. So it was a surprise when instead of Armsmaster's bike rocketing out of the dust cloud, a man in armour flew into sight and hurled another man at Brian.

There was an instant, one in which several thoughts raced through his mind. Firstly the man who Dauntless had thrown at him was made of metal and probably very heavy. Secondly he wasn't going to be able to dodge in time. Thirdly it was a damn good thing he'd figured out how to transform.

_schlorp_

Someone ran into his back and Brian sprawled forward with Taylor on top of him. His hands scraped and tore against rough ground, but the damage was healing before he even got to his feet. Alec was on the ground beside him, and behind him was...not the crater he'd been expecting.

Instead there was a blob of wobbling containment foam, and no metal man.

Alec's eyes went wide, spurring Brian to forget the mystery as Taylor shoved both of them to the side and leapt right after them. Lightning sparked where they'd been but he was more concerned with shoving Alec and Taylor towards Rachel's dogs and looking back for the others. He threw up a cloud of darkness over Dauntless and debated going back inside.

Which meant he was looking in the right direction to see the blob of containment foam wobble more and more violently, then surge into the shape of a man. Young, well built, wearing pants that emerged from the mass of foam where they'd been lost. As Brian watched, the figure took a step forward and frowned, then its foot took on the same black as the asphalt and the colour flowed up.

"That's better. Hard to talk when I'm only semi-solid." The voice was pleasant, bizarrely so coming from a statue of talking road. "I'd like to ask you to surrender. You'll only get hurt if you continue, especially with Purity on overwatch. You'll get a fair-"

His testimony concerning fairness was interrupted by Lisa ramming her fist into the small of his back, so hard that her hand sunk right down the wrist. Aisha grinned from her back, both of them looking a little scorched but otherwise okay. Then Lisa ducked beneath the Case 53's grab and ran for her freedom.

Brian figured she had the right idea, pausing only long enough to toss more darkness over the figure before he was also sprinting for Rachel's dogs. Ahead he saw Alec grasping at the air a moment before a brilliantly glowing woman slammed into the roof of the building behind him. Behind he heard a muted boom echoing through his darkness as bits of wriggling asphalt rained down around them.

Flicking a chunk off his shoulder, Brian grabbed Rachel's arm and let her pull him up onto one of the dogs, then they were off.

Before they made it onto the first roof he was yelling loud enough to be heard by those on the other dogs. "Where are the rest of them?"

However as soon as they got above the roofline it was obvious what had happened to the heroes' plan. On the other street a much fiercer battle raged, this one between at least half a dozen heroes and the villain team that they hadn't expected to come up against.

Rachel guided her dogs into a wide circle. It let them see just how screwed the Travellers were.

Trickster was still down, and so was Sundancer. Somehow the team had gotten them into an SUV parked on the street. Myriad doing something in the front seat that Brian's enhanced vision still couldn't make out, while Ballistic and Genesis held off the heroes.

Other than Armsmaster and Assault, Brian didn't recognise any of them. There was another flying blaster, a telekinetic taking cover behind a car with shattered windows, and several shapes moving in a cloud of oddly coloured smoke.

An engine roared, Ballistic forced the flying blaster to drop below the roofline, and Genesis' projection hurled itself into the smoke as he dived into the SUV. It peeled off smoothly and even dodged around Assault as the hero tried to bring his fists down on the front of the vehicle.

But it was all futile. Armsmaster had been hanging back, but when they began to drive away his bike took off down the street after them. Ballistic shot something back, forcing the hero to weave around the puffs of shrapnel that each impact raised from the road, failing to slow him at all. Their fate was sealed.

Brian was turning to order Rachel to get them out of there when Lisa did something. Something a little bit brave, and a whole lot stupid.

"Rachel, boost me!" Was her parting cry as their resident Thinker hurled herself off Brutus' back. She'd leapt far enough to clear the rooftop he was running along, tail fluttering behind her as she just barely made it across an alley and rolled to her feet on the next roof. Immediately taking off away from them.

Her body swelled and grew as she ran, but she'd only gained a few feet when Rachel swore and the growth stopped. _'Out of range.'_

She was running down the street that the Travellers were racing up. Getting closer to them with every passing second. Already Brian could see what she was planning, and why she'd done it.

Not that knowing made him any less furious at her for doing it.

"Turn around!" Shouted Aisha. "We have to go back!"

"No." Brian didn't need to yell. Rachel was no fool, she was steering her dogs away from the fight, not closer.

Knowing why also didn't make it any easier to look his little sister in the eye when she looked his way in indignation. Then in quiet horror.

"We have to go back." She said again, this time almost too quietly for him to hear her over the rushing wind.

Turning in his seat and craning his neck, Brian saw the Travellers pass Lisa. He saw Lisa pounce off the roof and plummet two stories towards Armsmaster. He saw Armsmaster lean to the side and easily dodge away from her.

Then he saw Lisa's tail snake out and wrap around Armsmaster's chest. Its length went taut, then Lisa was yanked towards Armsmaster at the same time as the tinker was pulled backwards off his bike. The two of them hit the road in a tangled melee and Brian looked away. Lisa wouldn't want them seeing her inevitable defeat.

Several blocks passed beneath them in silence, other than the loud thuds of each step the dogs took. All the way Brian could practically feel the looks he was getting from everyone else. Except for Rachel. She kept her eyes fixed firmly ahead and Brian loved her a little for it.

When they were far enough away to stop and take a breath, everyone spoke at once.

"We have to go back for her!"

"What the hell was that bro!"

"The heroes called in fucking Purity!"

Emotions were thick in the air, choking his throat and cloying in his nose. Every one of his team was transformed, even Rachel was shaking when he looked closer at her back, enough that Brian wasn't sure if her silence meant obedience any more.

Of course, he wasn't exactly feeling calm himself.

_'They took her.'_

Lisa would be on her way to a cell by now. To being judged and caged and interrogated.

_'I'll crush them.'_

They'd taken his teammate. His friend. Now they'd stick her in some cell, ripe for Coil with his PRT moles to do whatever he liked with her.

Already he could imagine the headlines. The newspaper's screaming false sympathy after one of Runt's new team hanged herself in her cell.

_'Not a chance. Not while I'm still breathing.'_

It was the same decision he'd made before. His resolve hadn't changed. His team would be protected to the bitter end, whatever that end looked like. So Brian thought back to a night on the docks and a horde of beasts struck silent, then he looked at each of his pack and spoke.

"Quiet." He didn't shout. Danny Hebert had only shouted to make himself heard, and there was no need for that hear. All that Taylor's father had done, all that Brian did now, was discard any notion of not being listened to from the outset.

"There's no time for this." Brian told them. He looked each of them in the eye. Not glaring. Not angry or trying to intimidate them. Just making sure they knew who was in charge, who they were going to listen to.

Lisa was captured. Taylor's collar could be giving their position away as they spoke. All while Coil kept plotting to bring them down.

There were no good options left, so Brian went with the best he could see.

"We stick with the plan."

He didn't look away until they'd all nodded agreement. Only then did he let himself turn away, but even then he didn't dare to let his fears show.

All that he allowed onto his face was resolve. That was the least he could do for his friends, when he might be leading them to their deaths.

"Let's go."


	43. Alpha: 8

They'd been more or less certain that Coil's defences would extend some distance from his base.

That part of town had so many cameras that sticking up a few more, or hacking the ones already there, would be a minor task. So they'd accepted as a foregone conclusion that he would spot them on approach no matter what.

As such, trying to figure out a way to get close without him spotting them had been among the most frustrating parts of their planning. It was Taylor who suggested a solution in the end, something Brian put down to her not having been a thief as long as Myriad or himself.

Charging right down the street was not the way thieves did things.

However, as he leapt over another car and dropped to all fours for a little more speed, Brian had to admit that there was something to be said for it. Surrounded by the sounds of screeching breaks and blaring horns, he barked out a wolf laugh and roared at his team to stay close behind him.

The straps across his chest pulled tighter, reminding him to be more gentle with his gait. Taylor's perch on his back had been padded as best they could manage, but it still had to be uncomfortable. A part of Brian was glad of her discomfort, still seething with anger that she'd insisted on coming with them.

She was armed with one of Lisa's spare guns, but she still wasn't bulletproof. She'd also told him point blank that she'd attack on foot if she had to, so there hadn't been much choice in the end.

Up ahead Coil's skyscraper loomed, dozens of floors stuffed with mercenaries and traps and the twisted bastard who had hunted them out of their home.

That was what filled the upper floors at least. Lisa had predicted that the first twenty or thirty were entirely innocent. Not all of them were publicly owned, but that didn't necessarily mean anything sinister or illegal.

Meaning that as they drew closer there was a fair sized crowd of civilians in front of the building. Normal people who had just had their lunch breaks interrupted but several tons of angry werewolf.

Luckily for them, Brian lead the team right past them and leapt high into the air. He cleared the first ten floors easily and slammed into the side of the building in an explosion of shattering glass. His claws sunk into floors and ceilings and outer columns, while the straps across his chest slid and tightened, holding Taylor to his back and away from a very very long fall.

Another impact boomed to his side, but Brian kept his eyes focused on the building as he began to climb. Through the glass he saw pandemonium. People screaming and running for the elevators, the stairs, for anything that would get them away from the monsters climbing up their building. Not that he had any intention of going inside, not this low.

It was probably the most bizarre aspect of Taylor and Rachel's combined gift. How easy some things became.

The climb, which would have been fit for any daredevil action movie if he'd been human, was as easy as climbing a ladder. The glass could not cut him, no matter how he poked his claws through it. The floor held his weight, for all that he could have his fingers on one floor and his thumb on the ceiling below. Wind tugged and screamed at him, but Brian honestly wasn't worried about the fall.

Small hands found a gap in his armour of bone and caught a fistful of his fur. Brian had to hold back a growl at the sharp little pain, but hold it back he did. Taylor didn't have his advantages right now. For her this had to be terrifying.

So he redoubled his efforts and climbed faster.

Then his hand bounced off a window and the wind almost had him. A scream from his back got absolutely no judgement from him because, when he swung out with only one hand holding him to the building and saw just how high up they were...it was all Brian could do not to scream himself.

_'Those people are very very small.'_

Heaving with his other shoulder, Brian swung his claws a lot harder this time. They punched through the glass, but only barely. Which was when he pulled himself up and got a good look at the floor that had such tough windows.

The first thing he noticed was the complete emptiness of the room. Not even cheap office furniture to break up the space. The second thing he noticed was the cluster of men in dark combat gear and their guns. They almost had him worried before he remembered the glass between them. It had to be at least bulletproof, if not a lot tougher than that.

Which was when he noticed that this floor had smaller windows set into the floor to ceiling ones. Ones with metal frames and-_ 'Oh fuck it's open!'_

Gunfire roared and it felt like he had his own personal hailstorm beating on his chest. Scarring and pitting his armour as they traced their fire back and forth along him.

As tempting as it was to smash the glass, reach inside, and knock them on their asses, he was still too low. A quick glance told him he couldn't be higher than the fiftieth floor, and they'd figured the important stuff would be the top ten of the ninety five storey building.

He hurried to get a hold on the next floor, and carefully kicked footholds in the current one. With the toughened glass and automatic rifles pounding his front the whole time, climbing the ladder had become a fuck of a lot harder.

_'I had to fucking think it was too easy.'_

_"Fucking Coil, couldn't have just been another underground base."_ Brian growled, not caring that his words would be growled nonsense to anyone else. No. No this fucker had to hide out in one of the tallest buildings in the city. _"At least we're not in New York! Fucking tinker made buildings over there."_

Scrambling up another floor, Brian wondered if he'd ever get a chance to visit the big apple. He'd always wanted to, but with the way life was going these days it seemed like it might be too much to hope for.

An empty floor gave him a short break, then there came another unfurnished room with mercenaries waiting to shoot at him. Only this time they brought explosives.

The blast of a grenade launcher wasn't nearly as bad as the last time he'd been hit by one. Weeks ago, in the Empire's underground base, he'd used his hand to trap a grenade against the concrete and shield his team. Which had meant a hole blown in his hand.

This time it just put a shallow crater in the armour on his chest and almost shoved him out into open air. His grip screeched and dug furrows in the building, but he was still pushed out. Worse was the damage it did to one of the straps holding Taylor safely to him, the binding snapping loose and letting a bundle of padding fall away as she clung desperately to his neck and the remaining straps.

Only the very tips of his claws saved them, digging in deep enough to keep his hold, to reach forward and secure his grip again. The mercenaries went to shoot him while he was vulnerable, only for Taylor to stand up on his back, poke her gun through the small window and open fire.

They fired back quickly enough, forcing her back down behind him, but it was enough of a delay to let him get secure. When they fired again he was ready for it and heaved himself upwards with a wolf's grin. The grenade soaring beneath him and thankfully detonating in the air rather than tumbling to the streets below.

The climb continued, though now he had to be careful to check the weapons aimed at him on each floor. Occasionally he glanced down to check that his team was climbing safely, but with the mounting difficulty Brian was forced to keep his attention mostly on himself and Taylor.

It was on the eighty sixth floor that it happened. Four assault rifles were poked towards him, same as all the other floors, no grenade launchers on this one though so he wasn't too worried. Then the bit of black plastic beneath the barrels that he'd assumed to be a forward grip lit up with blue light and split apart into a barrel that screamed tinker tech.

An instant later it was the air that screamed as four lasers punched through the glass and burned across the sky. A shallow wound on Brian's side declared very clearly that the weapons could hurt him and that throwing himself to the side had been a good idea.

Of course, as he scrambled for purchase on the glass, it didn't seem like so much of one. Right as he was about to grab Taylor off his back and curl himself around her for the fall, futile as that might be, his claws caught on the edge of a window and Brian howled in pain as his entire weight was put on the claws of one foot.

He scented blood in the air, felt it pouring from the end of his foot, but there was no time to yelp with the room he'd leapt to already filling up with mercenaries as they ran into the next room over.

They raised their guns again, the laser attachments primed and ready. Brian saw a vicious smile on more than one face and knew that the entire defence so far had been a trap to ensure he was too high up to leap to safety.

Those smiles vanished when he swung his fist forward, smashing his claw tips through the window in front of them. Only to return when he got no further than that. One of them smirked as he raised his weapon but overall they were professional about it. At least until darkness poured into the room through the holes he'd punctured.

A split second was all it took to fill the room, then he swung back to the other window. The one with a big hole melted in it.

Brian scrambled through after knocking away the glass above. He wasn't going to risk scraping Taylor off his back or having her burned by the molten edges. Then they were inside and she could finally drop down to the floor.

He glanced outside to check on his team, then whirled back to face the door when he heard boots approaching.

Before he could do anything, Taylor had poked her head out the doorway and then darted back in just as quick. "Two of them, coming from the left." She hissed to him.

Inside his massive size was more liability than advantage. Even on all fours with his belly on the floor, he had just a few feet of clearance between himself and ceiling. Which meant limited mobility.

The other way to look at it, Brian reflected as he pumped darkness ahead of himself, was that he didn't need to bother aiming. He shoved himself headfirst into the corridor and belly crawled along it at a speed that a human anatomy couldn't hope for. The mercenaries met a wall of bone and muscle and lost.

He tossed them into the room where four more of their comrades were still trying to find the walls, then poked an arm into that room and disabled everyone else in it. He wasn't gentle.

Footsteps behind him revealed the flaw in the arrangement, and the knowledge that Taylor was behind him turned that flaw into panic. Driving him to thrash at the walls. The plasterboard gave easily, as did most of the crap behind it. Partition walls hadn't a hope in hell of stopping him from turning around and...finding a lone mercenary curled up on the ground, still in spasms from the taser sparking in Taylor's hands.

"I hid behind the doorframe, dumbass ran straight for your back." As she spoke Taylor reached down and gingerly picked up the mercenaries rifle. Her movements were clumsy but she held it tight with her finger on the trigger guard. Lisa must have given her a few pointers sometime.

Brian wanted to say a lot of things in that moment. Starting with the terror that was pounding in his chest and ending with how badly they needed to get that collar off her if she was going to refuse to stay somewhere safe, but they didn't have the time to play charades.

So instead he smiled as best he could with a mouth like a dinosaur (one of the cool ones, not some sissy herbivore) and an immobile mask over his inhuman features.

Then they set off deeper into the building. Almost immediately punching through the charade of the outer rooms.

The corridor circled the building for a while, then there was a nondescript looking door leading deeper inside. The other side of which was anything but normal. For one thing he'd had to hit the door, which looked like simple compressed wood from the outside, several times before it twisted inwards to reveal itself as thick metal. On the other side was something that looked a lot less like an office and a lot more like some kind of military base.

Black walls inset with harshly glaring lights. Metal grill floors over wiring and pipes, the innards usually hidden below floorboards. Looking around he saw a keypad and optical reader linked up to the door they'd just torn through, then stomping boots began to echo closer and the two of them had other worries.

Before he'd known about the lasers, Brian hadn't been particularly worried about this part. Most weapons that a normal human could carry were near enough to useless against him. Unfortunately the lasers that Coil's men and women were lugging around weren't most weapons.

Which turned Taylor's presence into a serious boon. While they worked their way deeper and higher in the building, the mercenaries they encountered were faced with a choice between firing at Taylor, keeping her pinned behind cover but allowing him to storm close and beat them down, or fire at him and have her flank them. Her stolen rifle forcing them to pay attention to her and get beat down by him.

Since she could grab ammo off the groaning mercs they left in their wake, it all seemed like a pretty solid plan. The only real problem was how hard it was to find the stairs to each floor.

If there was a single elevator then it was hidden too well for them to find it by punching the occasional wall, especially with the way the walls were thickening and the tougher materials they were made of compared to the outer offices. Meanwhile the stairs were like a TV studio, scattered all over and with a maze of corridors in between, filled with barricades and secure doors. Not that either proved much of an obstacle for them.

There was no way to punch the stairs into appearing however, so they were left to search the hard way. Which meant wandering past rooms and opening every door, either him poking his head in or Taylor stepping inside. Which was how they found her.

Coil was clearly too rich and modern to use anything as old-fashioned as prison bars. No, the cell they came across was divided from the rest of the room by a floor to ceiling wall of what looked like clear plastic and was almost certainly some tinker material.

On the other side was a simple bed, a toilet with no privacy partition, and a similarly open area for showers. Hatches down by the floor were presumably how meals and clothes and such got in and out, given a tray of half-eaten food was sitting on the floor inside the cell.

It was the occupant that drew Brian's attention though, and the sight of her actually stirred a fragment of guilt in his chest.

Othala had beaten his sister, tormented Taylor's father, and was a lifelong Nazi. He had every reason to hate her.

Seeing her eyes, empty and glazed, still made Brian regret his part in putting her where she was. She was scratching at track marks along her inner arm, rocking back and forth as she clutched her legs. A whisper made it out of the cell, so quiet that even he could barely hear snatches of it.

"...ictor...waitin...please..."

Brian turned his head away, Taylor did the same. They said nothing to one another.

Even if he could talk in his form, what could they possibly have said?

It wasn't long after that that they found the next flight of stairs, the first one without a pair of mercenaries at the top of it. At the top was more of the same, but by his count they were up to the eighty ninth floor and he couldn't help but suspect that a guy like Coil would have claimed the top floors for himself. Ninety was a nice round number for him to have started from.

The thicker walls were starting to annoy him though. Not only did they make it harder for him to move around, but the lights set into them were at just the right height to be constantly shining into his eyes. Though he took a childish glee in the fact that his mass was scraping out the front of each bulb as he passed it. Whoever picked up the bill for all this damage wasn't going to be happy about it.

Then he felt it. A slight bump. One of the bulbs had stuck out ever so slightly further than the others.

Instinct screamed at him and Brian grabbed Taylor and tucked her behind his bulk, pushing solid darkness out in every direction. Then the world exploded around them.

Pain tore through him. Plates cracking all over his body and his flesh hissing as his own blood cooled the ball bearings that had been blasted into him.

The walls were slagged. Thick bands of normal looking material blown away by the explosives beneath. The payload it had blasted into him hadn't pierced deep enough to do real damage and he could already feel the wounds healing, his flesh squirming against the shrapnel and beginning to push it out. None of which changed that he was deaf and blind in one eye from a lucky hit.

A flicker of light in his good eye was the only warning he got. Then blue light flared too bright for him to look at and Brian felt real pain.

He tried to roar at the agony burning through him, but he was choking on blood and the world was flickering between the bloody view of the world and a dim view of pulsing flesh. He was losing his connection to Rachel's boost. _'How?'_

As a trio of boots came into view of his sole eye, when he wasn't screaming his pain at a wall of skin instead, Brian looked down.

_'Oh.'_

It was a very big hole. A very very big hole. In his gut. The edges of his armour plates glowed red or faded to a charred black. Between edges he could see deep inside himself, right down to where the sac holding his real body was. In fact he could see inside it.

He could see inside himself.

Bile rose in his throat, both of them, as Brian realised that he was missing his right hip, and the right side of his abdomen. His guts spilled out into the cauterised hole that had been burned through him and through the agony he was aware that it was incredible he wasn't already dead. Regeneration was an amazing thing.

Of course, when one of the mercs strolled up, carrying the end of the massive laser gun that the other two were holding between them...when she shoved the tip against Brian's head...when he tried to reach out and tear them apart but his body barely twitched...

It was hard to think. All he could manage was to hope that Taylor had gotten clear of the blast, and the laser beam. If he'd at least protected her then that would be, something.

Then gunfire roared in his ear and the women holding the tip of the gun collapsed without most of her head. A dark shape scrambled past him and leapt at the other two as they dropped the big gun and scrambled for sidearms. Taylor was faster than either of them, hurling herself at one man and using the rifle as a club.

For all that the mercenary was bigger, stronger, and much better trained, surprise slowed him down enough for the butt of the gun to knock him out cold. Then she swept it back across to knock the pistol out of the other guy's hands.

Brian's vision went to the inside for a moment, then came back to despair.

The mercenary hadn't bothered going for his gun. He'd simply grabbed Taylor by the throat and slammed her slender frame against the wall. Her legs kicked uselessly. She thrashed and spat at him. All while Brian could do nothing, no matter how he roared and pulled at his useless body. It wouldn't move. It wouldn't fucking move!

Then Taylor grabbed the hand holding her up, and hugged it against herself. Coil's minion had a moment to look confused, and then she screamed and spasmed and he was doing exactly the same. Even if she'd let him, the man's hand couldn't let her go with the electricity coursing through his body. It continued until he was limp and smoking, then went on a little longer.

Taylor slumped down the wall, gasping for breath, and Brian managed a smile. His vision went to the flesh sac and this time it stayed there. Which was fine. His wounds didn't include his lungs, and his regeneration was keeping him from passing out, so he could say...

...he could say...

...something...

...so many things...

...he...

...wanted...

…

Pain greeted Brian as the world resumed around him.

The first thing he saw was his own flesh, not Rachel's boosted flesh suit, knitting together incredibly fast but still at least a minute from healing the damage done to him.

He forced himself to stop doubling over, so the second thing he saw was a woman with glazed eyes and hate lurking beneath them. Wearing red even now.

The third thing he saw was a blood-soaked woman holding a gun to Othala's head. Then his brain started to kick in again and he ticked her age down as he looked beneath the blood and found Taylor. She was smiling at him despite still being covered in what he had to assume was the blood spatter from blasting a woman's head off. It was beautiful.

Suddenly he remembered what it had been like a few moments ago, minutes ago? An eternity ago? However long it had been, Brian ached at the thought of the things he'd longed to say as life faded away. He opened his mouth to spit out every one of them...and hacked up a lump of blood and mucus.

Then he threw up.

_'Nope. Moment ruined.'_

Taylor jabbed the gun into Othala's neck until the Nazi laid her hands on him again, warmth spreading from her hands and giving him the strength to speak.

"Wha?" Okay so it wasn't a lot of speaking, but then again he was pretty sure he'd lost most of his diaphragm.

Taylor's eyes softened and she met his woozy gaze. "I realised your regen was keeping you alive, I thought that she might be able to grant you even more."

"You...right." Multiple words that time. He'd lost one of the three he'd intended to speak, but that was still progress.

"I'm glad it worked. So, so glad..." She trailed off and he saw tears in her eyes. Not that she let the gun waver from Othala's neck.

A few minutes later, Brian's body was intact again, even if it still hurt like hell and had a very impressive scar across the right side of his abs. The pain was fading as he kept still and let Othala do her work, but the scar wasn't shrinking any more.

He shrugged and gestured for Taylor to pass him the gun. She walked over and kicked one of the mercs guns over to him from where she'd clearly set them out of Othala's reach. The healer didn't even try to grab one, which made sense with the shape she looked to be in.

Brian almost felt bad for picking the rifle up and jabbing her with the barrel.

She turned her empty gaze from her hands to his face, but he refused to flinch from it. Not with the idea that had crept into his head.

"You can do invincibility right? Give it to her."

A blank stare was his reply, but behind Othala he could see dawning comprehension in Taylor's eyes. Which was probably why she threw her gun aside and grabbed Othala's hand. Another jab with his rifle and the Nazi healer shrugged, then Taylor went tense and let her go. Brian kept his gun on Othala though, and let his eyes tell her just what would happen to her if she took her gift back too early.

Taylor's collar lit up. Then it began to spark. As Taylor reached up and grabbed it on both sides with clawed hands, the sparks became a ring of lightning rushing along the outside of it. Then she began to pull.

At first it held, and Brian thought he might need to help. As he tried to work out how to do so without leaving Othala unguarded, something snapped and a piece of metal pinged into the corner. Then the collar split into two halves. Taylor heaved them apart, her lean frame gaining muscles that no normal human had, swelling and rippling with fur. She strained at the seams of her clothes, sweating as she pulled apart two pieces of metal somehow joined by lightning. Light and heat pouring off the thing brighter and brighter until...

_fss pop_

It simply went dark. Taylor's hands shot out to the sides and she winced as she shrunk back to her normal self. Only this time she was all the way normal, with the ears and tail that he'd come to see as a natural part of her.

She smiled at him. He smiled at her. Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out a taser. As Othala writhed and went limp, Brian grabbed some zipties off the nearest merc and set about binding the healer. He quirked a brow as he did so, wondering just why it felt so breezy...

He snapped his head around to look at Taylor, finding her staring at him with wide eyes and a face that was redder even than the blood spattered across it. His own face took a similar hue when he saw the direction of her gaze, then they were both turning away and blabbering nonsense at one another.

The mercenary she'd knocked unconscious was still breathing and his pants were a close fit for Brian. Once he'd pulled them on -having to cut a hole for his tail- he considered the rest of the man's clothes, only to decide against it. Pants were plenty of clothing for fighting in.

Though Aisha might give him some grief over...Aisha!

He remembered his sister again, and just like that all the bits of the plan that he hadn't quite been able to bring to mind came back to him. By the look on Taylor's face she was thinking the same thing and the two of them shared and grin. Then they stood and waited until Alec's voice chimed from some hidden speaker.

"Traps are down, get to the ninetieth floor."

They both set off at a run. It took a dozen strides to become a race, both of them sprinting to find the stairs and when they did, rushing up them together. They didn't meet one mercenary along the way who wasn't twitching on the floor.

The stairs up to the next floor were different. For one thing there was a door at the bottom of them that would have probably even slowed them down if Brian had still been in his boosted body. Since it was wide open there was no slowing down, and they tumbled up the steps, through another vault door and into the sunlight.

The ninetieth floor had a roof over their heads, but it ended just a few feet away and while the corridor continued to either side of them there was no wall between it and the rooftop garden. Stepping out onto the grass, Brian looked around and saw wealth to make even Madison Clement's room look humble.

In three directions the building continued upwards for another five floors, though only a segment over to the left climbed all the way to that height and there were any number of balconies in sight. It was hard to tell from this angle but Brian thought he saw a helicopter sitting on one of the rooftops.

In the other direction there was only a garden, encircled on three sides by the building, with the last having only a low balcony to obstruct the view out over the Bay. All of the buildings in the city that were as high or taller were behind it, and Brian was willing to bet that none of them had a view into this garden. Especially after he took a look around and realised the pattern to it.

Off to one side was an Asian area. A weird blend of styles from several countries, mostly Japanese. Then there was a small chunk that had been left wild of all things. Choked with weeds and completely untended, except to keep it in what Brian realised was a very particular shape. The rest was bare grass, but he'd done some landscaped work one summer years ago, and Brian recognised newly laid turf.

With that in mind it was obvious. The garden was a map of the gang territories throughout the Bay.

Brian wandered through it until he found a table and chairs set up for someone to sit and take in the view while they drank a cup of coffee. One that had long since gone cold.

Then he greeted Coil. "Your garden is ridiculous."

The supervillain would probably have said something nasty in reply, but Aisha had tore away his mask and jammed a sock in his mouth. He was sitting on one of the chairs and she was standing behind him with her very large knife to his throat. To the side, Alec loomed in his boosted form. He'd definitely ruined the flowerbeds he was standing in.

Since it felt counterproductive to have a one-sided conversation, Brian waited for Taylor and pulled a seat out for her, then he reached across and yanked the sock out of Coil's mouth.

"Will Miss Lindt not be joining us?"

There was a long pause, then Brian snorted and sat down as well. Aisha put a small leather bag down on the table, sliding it over to him, and Brian reached inside. From it he pulled a phone which he immediately used to check the time.

Only then did he turn back to Coil and say, "Isn't this the part where you ask us how we did it?"

"You distracted me while your sister and Mister Vasil climbed my building and dragged me from my office. I'm more interested in where Miss Lindt is."

Again he checked the time, waiting and waiting to reply. Coils' patient mask did not crack, but then, that wasn't what he was waiting for.

Eventually Brian figured it was close enough and spoke. "No, Rachel's job was to break into the lower floors and make sure you didn't slip past us. Since I'm guessing my teammates saw your security feeds," Aisha nodded slightly and Alec's enormous head bobbed with his lolling tongue flapping at the end, "and they haven't signalled me otherwise, she's fine."

The slightest bit of tension that had been in Coil's shoulders fell away. Leaving a man who was far too relaxed for the knife at his throat.

"Well then, this has been enlightening but it is past time for me to be elsewhere and you to all die painfully." Coil did not move despite his words, though Aisha gripped his shoulder and pressed the knife closer.

"Oh, I don't think so." Coil answered him with a sneer, but it faltered a little when Brian's smile remained. "You see," Brian said as he raised his phone and showed their ex-boss the time displayed on it, "we timed this one out pretty damn well."

Then he raised his other hand and extended all five fingers. Checking the display one last time he waited for the right second and tucked his thumb into his palm.

"What kind of bluff is this." Coil spat...but his eyes were fixed on Brian's hand as another finger went down. Then another. Another.

When the last finger fell Coil flinched. Then relaxed as Brian frowned as his phone. "As I said, just a desperate blu-"

The villain cut himself off with a gasp of terror. He tried to rock back in his seat, but Aisha's knife was too close for him to move.

"How!?" Coil cried, fear obliterating his previous calm.

Brian let him stew for a moment, savouring the moment and flicking his eyes up to the security cameras along the edges of the garden that he really hoped were recording all this. Lisa deserved to see his downfall.

"We knew your power from the start. That you like to have one world running where you're in a completely different place, safe and well. You're right to think it's a solid protection, but only if we came at you alone."

Comprehension failed to dawn, so Brian continued. "You really shouldn't have expected to keep your real face hidden for long with Lisa coming for you. Not after she saw your mask. Once we had two of her a sketch was easy. Then it was just matter of dividing the labours."

Now there was realisation on his face. Brian leant back in his chair and Taylor took over with a fierce smile. "You shouldn't have pissed off the Travellers. That trick they do with the clones spreading out and searching for something? Give them a sketch and a few areas to focus on and they can find just about anyone. Then the clone teleports in its friends and..."

"Ballistic." Coil muttered.

"I'm sure you can figure the rest out for yourself. Now if you don't mind we," she looked at him and Brian shared her smile, "have a job for you this time."

Which was the point when Alec's curling horns sparked and split and Coil had a violent fit in his chair.

* * *

The first and only warning that they gave came when Brian spread his power across the water.

Darkness poured out from him and quickly covered the bay for a hundred yards in every direction. Then he stepped out onto it, tested his footing, and began to run. Ahead of him the darkness spread, behind him dozens of hulking monsters joined the charge. All of them headed straight for the Protectorate HQ.

Alarms started before they were halfway there. Blaring in time with flashing red lights along the edge of the converted oil rig. Brian had wondered if they'd launch some missiles, but the base was merely hidden beneath a shimmering orb of light. It dipped beneath the water and every villain in the Bay knew that it went right the way underneath.

_'Good thing we're not planning to sneak in.'_

No, the time for sneaking had passed. Brian roared his challenge as he ran and behind him a horde of monsters did the same.

The HQ was in front of them in less than a minute, distance eaten by long legs and inhuman muscles. Not that any of them could get through the dome of energy.

Brian slowed to a walk and tapped on it, feeling the smooth -almost glassy- texture. Then he turned to his team, his whole team but one, and he howled.

They howled with him, even Aisha, looking like a smaller version of himself...albeit with different coloured plates, smaller ones, and much fewer of them. Plus she didn't have a plate across her lower jaw and the one protecting her face had cute little tusks and horns...so not really all that much like him.

The howl was still echoing across the water when he called up more of his darkness, this time forming a ramp. Up to where the forcefield's curve began to slope inwards and up. The horde surged up it ahead of them, but the Undersiders were close behind. Behind him he could feel solidity leaking out of his darkness, but it didn't matter. What mattered was ahead.

Soon they were arrayed across the top of the field, staring down at the roof of the heroes home base. Their safe haven.

Brian thought of his own safe haven and drew back his fist. It hit the shield with a noise like an electric gong, and below him Brian saw one of the heroes make a jeering gesture.

Then the rest of the horde followed his lead.

Alec and Aisha were stomping instead of punching. Taylor was over by her dad and a few of his most trusted, all of them swinging massive pieces of rebar instead of using their fists. Rachel was focused on getting her dogs to slam their bulk down again and again.

Beneath them the field held firm. Until it didn't.

A slight sag was their only warning before the ground fell away beneath them. Which was Brian's cue to use a trick he'd only thought of after completing the mad climb up Coil's base.

Darkness exploded out from him to cushion their fall. Not fully solid, but with enough resistance to slow them down so that they hit the HQ's roof without serious injuries.

None to them at least. Brian didn't see any injured heroes either, but he saw a hell of a lot of worried ones. Some he recognised, almost as many that he didn't. One look and he could see that they didn't have long before someone threw a punch, not that he was opposed to resolving things that way.

However it seemed risky with Armsmaster holding Lisa right in the middle of them all.

It was what he'd hoped for. The hero had figured what they came for and brought her out instead of giving them a reason to come inside. A smart move on his part, and a welcome one for Brian.

The halberd blade being held to her throat was much less welcome. Taylor began to growl when she saw it, and soon the sound spread throughout the horde. Brian snapped at them and most of them fell silent, Danny stepping in to bark at the rest until they shut up.

Then Brian took a long step forward, crossing a third of the distance to Lisa and Armsmaster with just that, and unslung the bundle of fabric over his shoulder. He lowered it semi-gently to the metal floor, and rolled it over to the hero.

The blade didn't move an inch as he poked at with his foot. Then flipped away the edge of the cloth to reveal Coil's slightly swollen face.

Gasps rippled out through the heroes, muted by the costume of a known villain that Coil was wearing. Then Armsmaster finished flipping the covers away and revealed the sign they'd stapled to his chest.

"Let our teammate go and you get this guy." He read out loud. The set of his jaw said a pretty clear no to that offer, so Brian gestured sharply to his sister and she put her much smaller hands to good use in pulling a phone out of her fur and tapping the screen to start a recorded voice playing. "Or we take her anyway and leave him with you."

Energy crackled through the air, literally, as every one of the heroes reacted by readying their powers and weapons. Armsmaster wasn't going to execute a hostage, so he had no way to make them back down. No way but a fight. One he was certain to lose.

_blip_

"Is this really necessary?" said a gentle voice from above them. One that reminded Brian of a hell of a lot of press conferences he'd seen over the years, and that tempting fate was never a good idea.

Looking up he couldn't even find it in himself to growl. Not with Legend and four of his team floating above their heads.

The fight had shifted just like that, but Brian had no intention of backing down. No matter what threats Legend made, no matter what he said, they were going to get Lisa back and damn the consequences.

"Armsmaster. Would you please let that young woman go to her friends?"

Alec yipped in confusion, Brian echoing his sentiment if not the very non-threatening noise.

However Armsmaster didn't have their hesitation. He pulled away his weapon and gave Lisa a slight shove. The blonde was wearing a standard villain jumpsuit, with an equally generic mask. Though the latter was a formality with Coil having leaked their names and faces.

She ran straight to Brian, and asked him one simple question, "Did you get it?"

He nodded and directed her to Aisha while Legend spoke again, "I think it would be best if you all surrendered peacefully. Once you've done so we can talk this all out, it's clear that you have things you wish to say to us and I'm sure you understand that we cannot just let you walk free. Why not skip the fighting and spare us all some pain."

The way he said it actually sounded like he wasn't the world's strongest blaster threatening to beat them like a whole pile of drums if they didn't do as they were told. Brian had to admire that. As well as feeling sorry for him as Lisa stepped forward again, with ears and a tail and a very happy smirk.

It was probably just his imagination, but Brian almost thought he saw Legend flinch when he saw it. Just a little.

"I've got another suggestion." Lisa said, fearless despite the sheer number of heroes looking at her and definitely thinking that she was the first one to target if it came to a fight. Before all the two-storey-tall werewolves.

"What would that be Tattletale? And I warn you, if you attempt to use a master power on me it will be taken as an attack."

She shook her head. "Nope, nothing like that. Just let me ask you something. Those super eyes of yours? Can you tell when someone's lying?"

"Usually, but I'm sure you know that such methods can be fooled."

"Still useful." She held up a slender black thumb drive, and Brian felt a wolf grin stretch his muzzle. "Like if you wanted to know if I was bluffing when I said this."

She tossed him the drive as she continued, "You're going to take a look at what's on there. Obviously there are other copies if anything happens to us here."

"And what will I find on it?" Legend sounded curious but not worried, yet.

"I won't embarrass you by saying. When you're done reading you're gonna give us a call, and you're gonna say yes."

"To what?"

"To leaving us be. So long as we're not committing a crime, you don't come after us. You let us roam free again and you don't single us out as targets so long as we stick to petty villainy and selling ours boosts to reputable people."

Now Legend looked worried, staring down at the thumb drive like it was a letter from the IRS. He started to reply when Lisa jerked and blurted out, "Oh! And you leave me to make a few financial transactions in the next few hours. So long as I don't try to hurt any innocents in the process."

The heroes looked back and forth like they were watching a tennis match. All but a few. The smart ones had eyes only for Legend, and when his shoulders drooped slightly they all reacted. Anger, frustration, acceptance, it was a tapestry of satisfaction for Brian. Probably even more of one for Taylor, judging by the rapt attention she was paying them all.

"You don't appear to be bluffing. This must be something very bad."

"Or very good." Lisa said in parting, as she jogged over to Rachel and gave the other girl's leg a quick hug.

Armsmaster stepped forward and a lot of the heroes did the same, but Legend held out his hand to stop them.

With that, the wolves began to leave. This time Brian didn't bother with his darkness. They could all swim to shore easily enough.

"Tattletale. All of you. If you're bluffing to get away from here, this won't end well."

Rachel helped Lisa onto one of her dogs and Brian lead his team into the water. None of them bothered to respond to Legend's final words.

* * *

It had been a hard decision, what they'd spoken of in that warehouse corner while they planned the whole thing out. Brian was still pleased with the side he'd come down on, even if the girl he spoke in favour of had sided with Lisa instead.

"The truth shall set you free." He muttered sardonically, taking another sip of the very expensive glass of whiskey he was holding. He'd mostly poured it for the fun of it, but it turned out that he liked the taste better than beer. Who knew?

Of course the truth probably wouldn't have set Taylor free. While withholding it seemed like it would keep all of them out of jail. Even so he wasn't sure if letting Taylor and Lisa go that route had been the right decision.

_'Then again,'_ Brian thought as he leant against the railing stared up at a truly massive full moon, _'I'm having this internal debate on top of our new skyscraper, so they may have made the right choice.'_

Lisa had been in a hell of a rush to get back. Enough of one that she conned her way past the PRT cordon around the building instead of waiting for them to be called off like the rest of them had. A very awkward wait of several hours; they'd spent it in an overpriced coffee shop with a dozen PRT agents just happening to be sitting nearby.

Clearly the specifics of their new deal were still up in the air, and Brian wasn't sure how long blackmailing the government could possibly work. However when they'd gotten inside and Lisa had told them about just how much of Coil's financial information she'd gotten her hands on while working for him, and just how much of his stuff she'd transferred across to them...

It was a lot to take in. So Brian didn't try. It could wait for the morning.

For now he had a clear sky and a hell of a view. Even with the city lights, he could see an awful lot of stars. Plus the moon.

"Heh." He wagged his tail a little. "I guess that makes us proper werewolves."

"I think we'd need more biting for that."

Her voice was soft. Gentle. A far cry from the fierce warrior he'd fought his way up this building with. Which reminded him that it would be them paying for all that damage, a thought that still made him smile somehow.

Brian turned slowly to face Taylor and opened his mouth. Then he forgot how to speak.

She was wearing a dress. Not the first time he'd seen that, true, but it was definitely the first time he'd seen this particular dress. Her feet were bare beneath it, but the way it followed her figure drew his eyes up despite himself. Not that Taylor had much of a figure, even with the changes her power had made to them all. It wasn't even very revealing.

_'Eyes up. Eyes up!'_

Gulping heavily, Brian dragged his eyes up to her face and got stuck at her neck. He'd never noticed how delicate it was before. With the velvet choker she was wearing it was suddenly hard not to. The pendant was odd though, it looked almost like a broken piece of metal. Something slightly bluish.

His eyes made it to her face all at once, the question in them making her blush.

She didn't respond to it at first. Taking the time to walk up beside him and copy his posture. Both of them leaning on the railing and looking at the other.

With a small smile, she said, "It's funny, but for all that I wanted to get that thing off, I kinda got to like the feel of it. Velvet seemed like a better choice than weird tinker alloys though."

It was a small thing to share, but something about it stirred a memory in Brian. His hand drifted to the back of his neck and tugged on one of his cornrows.

"I used to wear my hair long. My dad made me get it buzzed close, like a skinhead. Or a marine." She stepped closer to him, concern on her face. He was grateful. "I actually liked it better short, but keeping it in the same style was like letting him win."

Taylor murmured. "I like your hair." He wasn't sure if she'd even meant for him to hear -there were some things that took more than a few weeks to get used to- but given how much care she put into her own hair Brian was a little bit flattered.

He nodded to her new jewellery. "I like that. It looks good on you. The pendant's from the collar right?"

At the look in her eyes, a little happy, a little angry, a little of a lot of things...Brian decided it was his turn to take a step closer. She nudged her shoulder against his arm, and gave him a warm look. "Yeah, yeah it is. That thing...it was a way to try and control me. Wearing it like this feels like turning that back on them. It's dumb I-"

"No. No you're right." He leaned close as if to whisper a secret, even though they were alone in the garden. "I bet it would piss off Armsmaster to see it."

She grinned and he grinned with her, turning to look out over the city. It was a hell of a view, he had to admit that much.

Peaceful too. So peaceful that he barely noticed himself musing aloud, "It's been two months since we met. Kinda feel like getting you something to mark the occasion."

She made a breathy little sound, one that drew a few more words out of him, "Maybe another choker? They must make other styles and-" He cut himself off as his relaxed brain remembered that he was talking to someone else, not to the air.

"Uh, what were you doing out here anyway?" She changed the subject, mercifully.

"Stargazing I guess."

For a while there was silence, a very loud kind of it that made him long to look back at her and terrified to at the same time.

"If I wanted to stargaze...with you...would you want to?"

There was another question there. One of the ones he could never make himself say, lurking beneath what she'd said and making him wonder if maybe she was finding it hard to say those questions too.

Maybe it was okay not to say it. If they both knew what the silence meant.

So Brian didn't look at her, or say a word. Instead he took one last little step closer to her and took her hand in his own. Then he turned to face the cold night air, with a warm body pressed to his side. A length of silken fur brushing beneath his own tail and curling around his side.

The night crept on, as nights tend to do. In silence, and stillness, they watched the moon creep across the Bay.

Together.


End file.
